Any way to make a WPF textblock selectable?

Question

I want to make the text displayed in the Witty, an open source Twitter client, selectable. It is currently displayed using a custom textblock. I need to use a TextBlock because I'm working with the textblock's inlines to display and format the @username and links as hyperlinks. A frequent request is to be able to copy-paste the text. In order to do that I need to make the TextBlock selectable.

I tried to get it to work by displaying the text using a read-only TextBox styled to look like a textblock but this will not work in my class because a TextBox does not have inlines. In order words, I can't style or format the text within a TextBox individually like I can with a TextBlock.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

I'm not sure if you can make a TextBlock selectable, but another option would be to use a RichTextBox - it is like a TextBox as you suggested, but supports the formatting you want.

Answer 2

Create ControlTemplate for the TextBlock and put a TextBox inside with readonly property set. Or just use TextBox and make it readonly, then you can change the TextBox.Style to make it looks like TextBlock

Answer 3

nvm..

<TextBox Background="Transparent" BorderThickness="0" Text="{Binding Text}" IsReadOnly="True" TextWrapping="Wrap"/>

Answer 4

There is an alternative solution that might be adaptable to the RichTextBox oultined in this blog post - it used a trigger to swap out the control template when the use hovers over the control - should help with performance