Found what I was looking for over at https://stackoverflow.com/a/25696213/1039753!
I guess there is no way to stop it without subclassing or making an extension class/method to do it. What I was looking for was "auto complete" when I guess I should have been looking for "auto select". Knowing what to search for is key! This code works great, to use it you would do something like...
ComboBoxAutoSelectEx.AutoSelectOff(ComboBox1);
I could not see any performance hit either. It just looks like magic. I have slightly altered the code from that answer to add the required structure needed.
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using Opulos.Core.Win32;
namespace MyAppsNamespace {
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
public struct RECT {
public int Left;
public int Top;
public int Right;
public int Bottom;
}
// Extension class to disable the auto-select behavior when a combobox is in DropDown mode.
public static class ComboBoxAutoSelectEx {
public static void AutoSelectOff(this ComboBox combo) {
Data.Register(combo);
}
public static void AutoSelectOn(this ComboBox combo) {
Data data = null;
if (Data.dict.TryGetValue(combo, out data)) {
data.Dispose();
Data.dict.Remove(combo);
}
}
private class Data {
// keep a reference to the native windows so they don't get disposed
internal static Dictionary<ComboBox, Data> dict = new Dictionary<ComboBox, Data>();
// a ComboBox consists of 3 windows (combobox handle, text edit handle and dropdown list handle)
ComboBox combo;
NW nwList = null; // handle to the combobox's dropdown list
NW2 nwEdit = null; // handle to the edit window
internal void Dispose() {
dict.Remove(this.combo);
this.nwList.ReleaseHandle();
this.nwEdit.ReleaseHandle();
}
public static void Register(ComboBox combo) {
if (dict.ContainsKey(combo))
return; // already registered
Data data = new Data() { combo = combo };
Action assign = () => {
if (dict.ContainsKey(combo))
return; // already assigned
COMBOBOXINFO info = COMBOBOXINFO.GetInfo(combo); // new COMBOBOXINFO();
//info.cbSize = Marshal.SizeOf(info);
//COMBOBOXINFO2.SendMessageCb(combo.Handle, 0x164, IntPtr.Zero, out info);
dict[combo] = data;
data.nwList = new NW(combo, info.hwndList);
data.nwEdit = new NW2(info.hwndEdit);
};
if (!combo.IsHandleCreated)
combo.HandleCreated += delegate { assign(); };
else
assign();
combo.HandleDestroyed += delegate {
data.Dispose();
};
}
}
private class NW : NativeWindow {
ComboBox combo;
public NW(ComboBox combo, IntPtr handle) {
this.combo = combo;
AssignHandle(handle);
}
private const int LB_FINDSTRING = 0x018F;
private const int LB_FINDSTRINGEXACT = 0x01A2;
protected override void WndProc(ref Message m) {
if (m.Msg == LB_FINDSTRING) {
m.Msg = LB_FINDSTRINGEXACT;
}
base.WndProc(ref m);
if (m.Msg == LB_FINDSTRINGEXACT) {
String find = Marshal.PtrToStringAuto(m.LParam);
for (int i = 0; i < combo.Items.Count; i++) {
Object item = combo.Items[i];
if (item.Equals(find)) {
m.Result = new IntPtr(i);
break;
}
}
}
}
}
private class NW2 : NativeWindow {
public NW2(IntPtr handle) {
AssignHandle(handle);
}
private const int EM_SETSEL = 0x00B1;
private const int EM_GETSEL = 0x00B0;
protected override void WndProc(ref Message m) {
if (m.Msg == EM_SETSEL) {
// if this code is not here, then the entire combobox text is selected
// which looks ugly, especially when there are multiple combo boxes.
//
// if this method returns immediately, then the caret position is set
// to (0, 0). However, it seems that calling EM_GETSEL has a side effect
// that the caret position is mostly maintained. Sometimes it slips back
// to (0, 0).
SendMessage(Handle, EM_GETSEL, IntPtr.Zero, IntPtr.Zero);
//int selStart = (sel & 0x00ff);
//int selEnd = (sel >> 16) & 0x00ff;
//Debug.WriteLine("EM_GETSEL: " + selStart + " nEnd: " + selEnd);
return;
}
base.WndProc(ref m);
}
[DllImportAttribute("user32.dll", SetLastError=true)]
private static extern int SendMessage(IntPtr hWnd, int msg, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam);
}
}
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
public struct COMBOBOXINFO {
public Int32 cbSize;
public RECT rcItem;
public RECT rcButton;
public int buttonState;
public IntPtr hwndCombo;
public IntPtr hwndEdit;
public IntPtr hwndList;
public static COMBOBOXINFO GetInfo(ComboBox combo) {
COMBOBOXINFO info = new COMBOBOXINFO();
info.cbSize = Marshal.SizeOf(info);
SendMessageCb(combo.Handle, 0x164, IntPtr.Zero, out info);
return info;
}
[DllImport("user32.dll", EntryPoint = "SendMessageW", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
private static extern IntPtr SendMessageCb(IntPtr hWnd, int msg, IntPtr wp, out COMBOBOXINFO lp);
}
}
