WPF Multiline TextBox for large content

c# wpf textbox multiline
decasteljau picture decasteljau · Sep 11, 2009 · Viewed 30.1k times · Source

In a WPF application, I want to build a "Find in Files" output pane, in which I can stream large quantity of text, without re-allocating memory at each line, like the TextBox would do.

The WPF TextBox has a single Text property which stores a contiguous string. Each time, I want to add content, I need to do textBox.Text += "New Text", which is bad.

Ideally, that control would be virtual and require a minimum of resources, just for the visible lines.

I thought about using a standard ListBox with a VirtualizingStackPanel, but it does not allow Text Selection across lines.

(At each new line added, I want the control to update)

Any suggestion?

Answer

codymanix picture codymanix · Sep 12, 2009

If you do not expect much more than ten-thousands of search results in your application, a TextBlock control or readonly multiline TextBox will suffice by far.

The TextBox class has an AppendText() method which should be fast enough for you.

If you need text highlighting / formatting then maybe you want to use RichTextBox.

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