How to disable shortcuts in WPF TextBox

Question

I wan't to disable all default shortcuts in WPF TextBox. Shortcuts like Ctrl+A, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+C etc. Can this be done?. It looks to me that these shortcuts are executed before KeyDown event

Answer 1

You can intercept the keystrokes in the PreviewKeyDown event. Set the e.Handled member to true and that will prevent the actually processing of the keys.

Answer 2

public Window1()
{
    InitializeComponent();
    CommandManager.AddPreviewCanExecuteHandler(_textBox, _canExecute);
}

private void _canExecute(object sender, CanExecuteRoutedEventArgs e)
{
    e.CanExecute = false;
    e.Handled = true;
}

The above will prevent the TextBox from saying it can handle any command. You can selectively choose which commands you want to disable by examining the EventArgs. Or you can do this in XAML:

<TextBox x:Name="_textBox">
 <TextBox.CommandBindings>
  <CommandBinding Command="ApplicationCommands.Copy" CanExecute="_canExecute"/>
 </TextBox.CommandBindings>
</TextBox>

Here we're just disabling the execution of the Copy command. Control-C won't work, nor will the context menu or main menu. In fact, any control that executes the Copy command will be disabled if the focus is in the TextBox.

HTH, Kent