How to programmatically select all the text of a TextBox control (Compact .NET 2.0)

Question

I want to select all the text of a System.Windows.Forms.TextBox() control in a GotFocus event, but all the examples I found make use of the .SelectionStart / .SelectionEnd properties of the control, and those aren't available in .NET 2.0 Framework.

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Data;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace xCustomControls
{
    public partial class xTextBox : System.Windows.Forms.TextBox
    {
        public xTextBox()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            this.GotFocus += new System.EventHandler(this.GotFocusHandler);
        }

        private void GotFocusHandler(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            Control ctrl = (Control)sender;
            ctrl.BackColor = Color.Cyan;
            ctrl.SelectionStart = 0;
        }

Error:

'System.Windows.Forms.Control' does not contain a definition for 'SelectionStart' and no extension method 'SelectionStart' accepting a first argument of type 'System.Windows.Forms.Control' could be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

Any ideas?

TIA, Pablo

Answer 1

Replace the line

Control ctrl = (Control)sender;

with

TextBox ctrl = (TextBox)sender;

The compiler thinks you're working with a Control class, which doesn't have SelectionStart, but your object is really a derivative of TextBox, which does.