Windows "ding" sound plays when using ctrl+A in a textbox (C#)

Question

It was easy enough to create a text box that supports "ctrl+A" (select all), by listening in on the text box's KeyDown event for an "A" keypress when Control is set to True. When this condition is met, the text box does a call like this:

textBox1.Select(0, textBox1.Text.Length);
textBox1.ScrollToCaret();

The "select all" functionality works well enough, except that I hear the windows "ding" sound when I actually type ctrl+A into my text box when I'm using the application. I can't figure out why.

The TextBox supports this feature out of the box. No need for you to implement it! — Daniel Hilgarth, Mar 10 '11 at 21:57
@Daniel: not sure about your system, but on mine CTRL+A does not work with `TextBox`. — Jaroslav Jandek, Mar 10 '11 at 22:30
possible duplicate of [Stop the Bell on CTRL-A (WinForms)](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/225711/stop-the-bell-on-ctrl-a-winforms) — NotMe, Mar 10 '11 at 22:48

Jaroslav Jandek · Answer 1 · 2011-03-10T22:45:53.040

3

At least on Windows XP SP3 with Windows Forms, the same happens to me (it is really annoying).

The "ding" sound is played even without any event handlers. Multiline and other settings (preview, input keys, etc.) also have no effect.

I use this event handler to get rid of it:

public static void TextBoxSelectAll(object sender, KeyEventArgs e)
{
    if (e.KeyData == (Keys.Control | Keys.A))
    {
        ((TextBox)sender).SelectAll();

        e.SuppressKeyPress = true;
        e.Handled = true;
    }
}

edited Mar 10 '11 at 22:45

answered Mar 10 '11 at 22:18

Jaroslav Jandek

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Which event are you handling with this? `KeyDown`, `KeyPress`, or `KeyUp`? – Dai Apr 01 '13 at 07:59

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:30

0

~~The ding sound indicates an error has occurred, so my guess is that this line of code is what's causing the problem:~~

textBox1.Select(0, textBox1.Text.Length);

Because it's a 0 count, you really want to scroll to textBox1.Text.Length - 1. (I am guessing a bit, however. And, as Daniel said, this functionality is already built in...no need to implement it!)

Edit - The problem (as described here) occurs when textboxes are in multiline mode. Follow the link to a fix for the problem.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:30

Community

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answered Mar 10 '11 at 22:00

JasCav

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The `Select()` method adjusts invalid selection length internally, so no errors there. – Jaroslav Jandek Mar 10 '11 at 22:28
@Jaroslav - Updated. Found the answer on SO. Fixed the problem for me in a test project on my machine. – JasCav Mar 10 '11 at 22:35
This happens to me even when using `multiline=false`. I know at least 20 people that experience the same behavior... It might be a bug, though. – Jaroslav Jandek Mar 10 '11 at 22:39

Windows "ding" sound plays when using ctrl+A in a textbox (C#)

2 Answers2