Selectively coloring text in RichTextBox

Question

How can I paint in red every time I meet the letter \"A\" in RichTextBox?

Answer 1

Here is a snippet out of my wrapper class to do this job:

    private delegate void AddMessageCallback(string message, Color color);

    public void AddMessage(string message)
    {
        Color color = Color.Empty;

        string searchedString = message.ToLowerInvariant();

        if (searchedString.Contains("failed")
            || searchedString.Contains("error")
            || searchedString.Contains("warning"))
        {
            color = Color.Red;
        }
        else if (searchedString.Contains("success"))
        {
            color = Color.Green;
        }

        AddMessage(message, color);
    }

    public void AddMessage(string message, Color color)
    {
        if (_richTextBox.InvokeRequired)
        {
            AddMessageCallback cb = new AddMessageCallback(AddMessageInternal);
            _richTextBox.BeginInvoke(cb, message, color);
        }
        else
        {
            AddMessageInternal(message, color);
        }
    }

    private void AddMessageInternal(string message, Color color)
    {
        string formattedMessage = String.Format("{0:G}   {1}{2}", DateTime.Now, message, Environment.NewLine);

        if (color != Color.Empty)
        {
            _richTextBox.SelectionColor = color;
        }
        _richTextBox.SelectedText = formattedMessage;

        _richTextBox.SelectionStart = _richTextBox.Text.Length;
        _richTextBox.ScrollToCaret();
    }

Now you can call it with AddMessage("The command failed") to get it automatically highlight in red. Or you can call it with AddMessage("Just a special message", Color.Purple) to define a special color (Helpful e.g. within catch blocks to define a specific color, regardless of the message content)