AutoComplete on multi-word RTB

[NickThissen]

Hey,

I'm trying to find a way to make a sort-of AutoComplete function in my RichTextBox.
I did some searched for AutoComplete but all I found was examples for a one-line textbox where the user only types one word. It only worked for the first word.

In my RTB I can easily have up to 3000 lines of text so those examples don't work for me.

What I'm after exactly is very similar to the VB6 IDE, I don't know what it's called (not intellisense) but I mean the listbox-kind-of-thing that pops up if you type a ".".
For example:
Text1. will give a listbox with all methods, properties etc of Text1.

Only I don't want it to popup when you type "." but I want it to popup just as a normal AutoComplete function does.

For example, the program has the words 'hello', 'hi', 'help' and 'start' in it's 'memory'.
When the user types a "h" in the RTB, I want a listbox to popup near the letter "h" (or if that's too hard maybe just in a fixed place on the form) which lists "hello", "hi", and "help".

Also, as in normal AutoCompletion, the "h" should be extended to "hello" where the bold part is selected.

Can this be done? Are there any examples out there maybe?
It would help already if I knew the name of this behaviour in the VB6 IDE...

[westconn1]

i like the idea of this, but it looks like a huge task to populate a list box with all the words that could start with any particular letter

think you could store the all the words in a database, then just return so many (maybe max of 20) with a query each time a key is pressed, so by the time the third or 4th letter is pressed the selection might be meaningful to select from, the listbox could show over the richtextbox based
yon the cursor position

if this is to just be all words you are going to need to download a good dictionary, then you can allow the users to add to the database, if your list of words is to be a special list you would have to create your own
you could use certain keypresses to select from the listbox ie space, comma or stop and some others as well as clicking the item
also while you need the listbox to display over the richtext, you still need the richtext to have focus to accept keystrokes

i don't belive you could put all the words in a listbox unless you are only using a small selection words, but if that was the case you could use the sendmessage api with LBFindString to do the autocomplete part

[NickThissen]

I don't want it to autocomplete on all words, I have a listed of... maybe 150 words, that's all.

[NickThissen]

Well I started writing some code and I actually have something that already works very nice! But there are some flaws I can't seem to fix

The code:

Option Explicit
 
Dim sKeyWord(4) As String
Dim Change As Boolean
 
Private Sub Form_Load()
    sKeyWord(0) = "game_manager"
    sKeyWord(1) = "spawn"
    sKeyWord(2) = "setstate"
    sKeyWord(3) = "underconstruction"
    sKeyWord(4) = "invisible"
End Sub
 
Private Sub rtb_Change()
Dim lSpacePos As Long
Dim sWord As String
Dim i As Integer
Dim sSelText As String, lSelStart As Long
 
    With rtb
        'Spacepos:
        If .SelStart = 0 Then Exit Sub
        lSpacePos = InStrRev(.Text, " ", .SelStart)
        If lSpacePos = 0 Then Exit Sub
        'Word:
        sWord = Mid$(.Text, lSpacePos + 1, .SelStart - lSpacePos)
        
        If Not sWord = "" Then
            cmb.Clear
            For i = 0 To 4
                If sKeyWord(i) Like sWord & "*" Then
                    cmb.AddItem sKeyWord(i)
                    cmb.Text = cmb.List(0)
                    cmb.SelLength = Len(cmb.List(0))
                    
                    lSelStart = .SelStart
                    
                    sSelText = Mid$(cmb.List(0), Len(sWord) + 1, Len(cmb.List(0)) - Len(sWord))
                    .SelText = sSelText
                    .SelStart = lSelStart
                    .SelLength = Len(sSelText)
                    .SetFocus
                    
                End If
            Next
        Else
            cmb.Clear
        End If
    End With
    
End Sub

rtb is a richtextbox and cmb is a combobox.

When I type the "s" for example, the word gets autocompleted by "spawn" and the combobox gets filled with "spawn" and "setstate".

The problems:
- I cannot use backspace or delete for some reason after it autocompleted a word
- it doesn't work if there's no space infront. So it doesn't work after a linebreak or at the first position...

What am I doing wrong?

[NickThissen]

OK another update.

I got rid of the combobox, I now just let the RTB show the first keyword that matches.

The code:

Dim lSpacePos As Long
Dim sWord As String
Dim i As Integer
Dim sSelText As String, lSelStart As Long
Dim iWordCount As Integer
 
If blnBackSpace = True Then
    blnBackSpace = False
    Exit Sub
End If
    
    
With SOLO_RTBSyntax1
    'Spacepos
    If .SelStart = 0 Then Exit Sub
    
    lSpacePos = InStrRev(.Text, " ", .SelStart)
    If lSpacePos = 0 Then
        lSpacePos = InStrRev(.Text, vbNewLine, .SelStart)
        If lSpacePos = 0 Then
            lSpacePos = InStrRev(.Text, "", .SelStart)
            If lSpacePos = 0 Then Exit Sub
        End If
    End If
            
    'Word:
    sWord = Mid$(.Text, lSpacePos + 1, .SelStart - lSpacePos)
    
    If Not sWord = "" Then
        For i = 0 To 3
            If sKeyWord(i) Like sWord & "*" Then
'                iWordCount = iWordCount + 1
'                If Not iWordCount > 1 Then
                    lSelStart = .SelStart
                    sSelText = Mid$(sKeyWord(i), Len(sWord) + 1, Len(sKeyWord(i)) - Len(sWord))
                    .SelText = sSelText
                    .SelStart = lSelStart
                    .SelLength = Len(sSelText)
                    '.SetFocus
                    Exit For
'                End If
            End If
        Next
    End If
End With

It works 99% perfectly.

The only flaws:
- It doesn't work when I try it at the very first position of the RTB (.SelStart = 0, and InStrRev cannot start from 0).
- It only works after a space. Not after a tab, newline etc.

The nested If loops with lSpacePos are not functioning correctly, I know that much. They are there to see where the (part of the word) you are typing has started (or, where the first space, newline or tab occured).
However it should only find the space, newline or tab that is right in front of the word you're typing.
Now, the spacepos is from a totally different space, somewhere a few lines up when there was actually a tab infront of the word for example...