I think you mis understood. I am only talking about the prompt
characters that are in the textbox that describe to the user the valid
characters to input (defined by the mask).

For example, the MaskedTextBox supports the display of

###-#####

The prompt character in this case is #, and the mask defined accepts any
digit. This prompt character makes sence for this type of input, so

555-5555

is valid input.

Note however that you could have # as the prompt character, but the mask
can be defined to accept only letters.. in this case # doesn't make
sence, so in this case gived the prompt character #,

aaa-aaaa

is also valid input.


But the point here is that only 1 prompt character can be defined.
Because of the complex nature of the text the user can input, I need the
ability to display specific prompt characters characters, for example

XX BB #### ####

this prompt character display will mean something to the user. This is
my problem - I cannot specifiy a customized prompt text.

I never mentioned "not allowing the user to see what he has typed"

-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion forum for developers using Windows Forms to build apps
and controls [mailto:DOTNET-WINFORMS@DISC...] On Behalf Of
Pardee, Roy
Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2008 2:09 PM
To: DOTNET-WINFORMS@DISC...
Subject: Re: [DOTNET-WINFORMS] Prompt characters in a MaskedTextBox

I imagine you could handle the paint event, but--can you give us
background on why you don't want the actual characters the user types to
show?  If the entry is complicated enough to need regex validation, I
would think blinding the users to what they're typing could possibly
annoy them...

-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion forum for developers using Windows Forms to build apps
and controls [mailto:DOTNET-WINFORMS@DISC...] On Behalf Of
Bhatnagar, Amit
Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2008 7:57 AM
To: DOTNET-WINFORMS@DISC...
Subject: [DOTNET-WINFORMS] Prompt characters in a MaskedTextBox

I have the need to create a customized text entry box that can accept
various types of geographic coordinates. The problem

The MaskedTextBox only allows a single prompt character to be displayed
upon user input. I need the ability to display different prompt
characters for certain character positions. How can I do this? Also, due
to the nature of the text being inputted, I suspect that I will need to
use a regex to validate this properly. So I'm assuming because of these
two limitations, that the MaskedTextBox isn't the way to go.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can go about this? Use a
regular text box and validate against a reg expression? But how do I
handle displaying the custom prompt characters?

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