String formatting for rich text box with constant and dynamic text

Question

Currently I am attempting to create a dictionary which maps a selected item form a list view with a corresponding string output in a rich text box. I would like to bold specific text in the string, which will always be the same (constant) and also adding dynamic text to the string that would change.

Something like this: ID: 8494903282

Where ID is the constant text I need bolded and the numbers would be a dynamic ID that changes. I will need to have multiple lines with different data in this format which will be changing:

ID: 8494903282

Name: Some Name

Date: 3/15/2018

Currently I have a rich text box to output to and I am trying to use some string formatting to do what I want but this is not working correctly. Essentially I need a string value I can store in a dictionary so when an item gets selected I can just set the rtf property of the text box to the value of that dictionary item.

Below I have my current format string I am attempting to set the rtf property to:

string s1 = string.Format(@"{{\rtf1\ansi \b Commit ID: \b0 {0}\line}}", entry.ID);
string s2 = string.Format(@"{{\b Author: \b0 {0}\line}}", entry.Author);
string s3 = string.Format(@"{{\b Date: \b0 {0}\line}}", entry.Date.ToString("d"));
string s4 = Environment.NewLine + Environment.NewLine + entry.Message;
contents = (s1 + s2 + s3 + s4);

Then setting the rtf property of my rich text box:

LogContentsTB.Rtf = Logs[LogNamesLV.SelectedItems[0].Name];

Where logs is a dictionary of the form < string, string > that holds the format string for the specific item.

However, I get the following output rather than my expected output:

This is the correct form of output for the first item but nothing else appears. If there are any other ways to do this I am open to suggestion.

Are you sure that you are putting contents in the Logs correctly? — Chetan
@ChetanRanpariya yes, before I had a regular text box and I would output that exact string minus the formatting and trying to bold it. The data is good. — Schwagmister

Schwagmister Schwagmister · Accepted Answer · 2018-03-20T20:54:05

After doing some light reading on the rtf syntax I noticed that I was trying to close off each string with curly braces. Curly braces are used for RTF groups. For some reason the rich text box in windows forms did not play well with that.

Another thing to notice is that the string.format method was probably the main culprit for cause of issues with this type of formatting. In my answer I do not use it but rather just add the string directly into the rtf formatted string i.e. < format >< variable string >< ending format >

If you look at NetMage's response, you will notice he only puts an opening brace on the very first string, s1. This is to group the whole string. But we need to add a closing brace on the final string, s4, to finish the grouping. Below is the final code and screenshot that worked for my application.

string s1 = @"{\rtf1\ansi\b ID: \b0 " + entry.ID + @" \line\line";
string s2 = @"\b Author: \b0 " + entry.Author + @" \line\line";
string s3 = @"\b Date: \b0 " + entry.Date.ToString("d") + @" \line\line ";
string s4 = entry.Message + @"}";
contents = s1 + s2 + s3 + s4;

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

String formatting for rich text box with constant and dynamic text

2 Answers