Edit Text color for specific lines

[JaWiB]

After some searching I was able to figure out how to change the text color in a read-only edit box, but it also turns out that is not exactly what I want.

I have a simple bot that connects to battle.net so I add text every time something else is said. I want to be able to change the color depending on whether it is normal chat text, a whisper, an emote, etc. But I don't want it to affect the entire edit control--just a line or two (or whatever).

Is there a simple way to do this? I looked at the TextOut() function, and that might work, but it seems like it would be a lot of work if I understand how it works correctly. That is, it looks like you have to specify the coordinates for the text and it wouldn't work too well with scrolling and constantly adding more text.

[XSquared]

You're going to have to look into the richedit control. That'll allow you to specify different colours for each part of the text. With a standard edit control, you can only specify one colour for everything.

[JaWiB]

Thanks. I'm looking into it now, and this sounds good:

Rich edit controls support almost all of the messages and notification messages used with multiline edit controls. Thus, applications that already use edit controls can be easily changed to use rich edit controls.

I was worried that I would have to make drastic changes, but maybe I won't after all!

[JaWiB]

Took a bit more work than I thought it would but I've the colors working correctly now, thanks

[b00l34n]

could you please tell me how you did it?
i'm trying to do the exact same thing as you

[JaWiB]

Well first you have to create the Rich Edit, of course, so you call LoadLibrary with the proper dll as the argument (see here).

Then you use the EM_SETCHARFORMAT message when you want to change the color. I first filled the CHARFORMAT structure and then selected the end of the edit with the EM_SETSEL message and replaced that selection with the EM_REPLACESEL message like this:

int len=(GetWindowTextLength(GetDlgItem(hWnd, IDC_CHAT_TEXT))+1); //get edit text length
static CHARFORMAT chr = { sizeof(CHARFORMAT), CFM_COLOR, 0, 0, 0, RGB(0,0,0), 0, 0 }; //initialize the structure, only specifying color 
const char* parsedmessage = parseBNMessage(tempBuffer); //this gets the text to add to the edit  
switch (CurrentColor) //this is global, set by parseBNMessage()
{//pretty self-explanatory here
    case CHAT_COLOR:
        chr.crTextColor = RGB(0,0,255);
    break;  
    case EMOTE_COLOR:
        chr.crTextColor = RGB(252,158,18);
    break;
    case ERROR_COLOR:
         chr.crTextColor = RGB(255,0,0);
    break;
    case WHISPER_COLOR:
         chr.crTextColor = RGB(120,120,120);
    break;
    case CHANNEL_COLOR:
         chr.crTextColor = RGB(0,255,0);        
    break;
    case INFO_COLOR:
       chr.crTextColor = RGB(85,255,85);
    break;  
    case DEFAULT_COLOR:		        
       chr.crTextColor = RGB(0,0,0);
    break;
        
}
static CHARFORMAT* chrformat = &chr;  //SendMessage needs a pointer  
SendMessage(hChat, EM_SETSEL, len, len); //select the end of the edit
SendMessage(hChat, EM_SETCHARFORMAT, SCF_SELECTION, (LPARAM)(chrformat));  //color and/or format text 
SendMessage(hChat, EM_REPLACESEL, 0, (LPARAM)(parsedmessage)); //add the text

the parseBNMessage and switch statement are specific to my application, but I thought I'd leave it in anyways because it kind of makes it clearer what I'm doing (I think).

Hope that helps!

[b00l34n]

what a great answer, thanks man.
that's really helped me out.
I appreciate it

[b00l34n]

just tried the code and it works, i'm so happy.
been trying to do that for ages!