Creating a Watermark in winforms

Question

I am working on a Winforms project and I would like to create a Watermark in a TextBox. I tried a code that seems to be the right solution but is incorrect.

There is my code :

private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            textBox1.Text = "Veuillez entrez votre nom ici";

            if (textBox1.GotFocus)
            {
                textBox1.Text = "";
            }
        }

And I get this error at "GotFocus" :

CS0079 C# The event can only appear on the left hand side of += or -=

I searched on google but I didn't find any solutions to help my case.
What should I use instead of "GotFocus" to create a Watermark ?

Best regards, Zancrew.

"I searched on google but I didn't find any solutions to help my case" - on my!! google is broken today!! kernel panic — ASh, Dec 02 '19 at 09:46
gotfocus is an event you cant say if (event).. you assign the code to the event... — BugFinder, Dec 02 '19 at 09:49
Does this answer your question? [Adding placeholder text to textbox](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11873378/adding-placeholder-text-to-textbox) Note: although it's WPF there are some solutions that should work for WinForms as well — Biesi, Dec 02 '19 at 09:55

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 02 '19 at 09:56

0

A lazy solution

create a label and locate it where you want your watermark to be shown and disable it then paste code below on textbox's textchanged event

label_watermark.Visible = textBox1.Text.Length<1;

answered Dec 02 '19 at 09:56

trksyln

136
10

Read the linked duplicate post as it's not a good solution at all. – Reza Aghaei Dec 02 '19 at 11:01
what do you mean? – trksyln Dec 02 '19 at 11:07
There are two good ways to show a watermark, one and most reliable, sending [EM_SETCUEBANNER](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/controls/em-setcuebanner?WT.mc_id=DT-MVP-5003235) like what is done [here](https://stackoverflow.com/a/4902969/3110834), the other one which also works for multi-line text boxes and lets you to use different font and color is handling [WM_PAINT](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/gdi/wm-paint?WT.mc_id=DT-MVP-5003235) like what is done [here](https://stackoverflow.com/a/36534068/3110834). – Reza Aghaei Dec 02 '19 at 11:12
They say its not so reliable on comments also as i didn't say its good or better. its a simple and lazy way to do it. but thanks anyway good to know. – trksyln Dec 02 '19 at 11:37

Creating a Watermark in winforms

1 Answers1