Disable selecting text in a TextBox

Attach to the SelectionChanged event, and inside the event set e.Handled = true; and the SelectionLength = 0; and that will stop the selection from occuring. This is similar to what it takes to keep a key press from happening.

To disable selection highlight in a TextBox, you can override WndProc and handle WM_SETFOCUS message and replace it with a WM_KILLFOCUS. Please be aware that it doesn't make the TextBox control read-only and if you need to make it read-only, you should also set ReadOnly property to true. If you set ReadOnly to true, you can set and its BackColor to White or any other suitable color which you want.

In below code, I added a SelectionHighlightEnabled property to MyTextBox to make enabling or disabling the selection highlight easy:

• SelectionHighlightEnabled: Gets or sets a value indicating selection highlight is enabled or not. The value is true by default to act like a normal TextBox. If you set it to false then the selection highlight will not be rendered.

using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Windows.Forms;
public class MyTextBox : TextBox
{
    public MyTextBox()
    {
        SelectionHighlightEnabled = true;
    }
    const int WM_SETFOCUS = 0x0007;
    const int WM_KILLFOCUS = 0x0008;
    [DefaultValue(true)]
    public bool SelectionHighlightEnabled { get; set; }
    protected override void WndProc(ref Message m)
    {
        if (m.Msg == WM_SETFOCUS && !SelectionHighlightEnabled)
            m.Msg = WM_KILLFOCUS;

        base.WndProc(ref m);
    }
}

If you put the text into a label and then put the label into a System.Widnows.Forms.Panel control that has AutoScroll turned on you can display the text w/o it being selectable.

I came across of this thread for my same issue I faced. Somehow I resolved it as below,

if (sender != null)
                {
                    e.Handled = true;
                    if((sender as TextBox).SelectionLength != 0)
                        (sender as TextBox).SelectionLength = 0;
                }

Verifying if the length changed other than 0, then only set it to 0, resolves the recursive loop.

Very Easy Solution

Find a Label and into the textbox go to mousedown event and set focus to the label

This is in VB and can be easily converted into C#

Private Sub RichTextBox1_MouseDown(sender As Object, e As MouseEventArgs) Handles RichTextBox1.MouseDown
        Label1.Focus()
    End Sub

Since the standard TextBox doesn't have the SelectionChanged event, here's what I came up with.

private void TextBox1_MouseMove(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
    TextBox1.SelectionLength = 0;
}

If you are using XAML / WPF you should use a TextBlock instead of a TextBox.

ONLY IF YOU USE A TEXTBOX AS A DISPLAY AND NOT FOR INPUT - as TextBlock makes it seem as if the text is "engraved" onto the form itself, and not within a textbox. To get a Border around the TextBlock (if you wish), you can either do it :

In XAML such as :

<Border BorderThickness="1" BorderBrush="Gray">
    <TextBlock Background="White" Text="Your Own TextBlock"/>
</Border>

Or dynamically in C# Code:

//Create a Border object
Border border = new Border();
border.BorderThickness = new Thickness(1);
border.BorderBrush = Brushes.Black;

//Create the TextBlock object           
TextBlock tb = new TextBlock();
tb.Background = Brushes.White;
tb.Text = "Your Own TextBlock";

//Make the text block a child to the border
border.Child = tb;

You can use a disabled RichTextBox and reset the color to black afterwards.

RichTextBox rtb = new RichTextBox();
rtb.IsEnabled = false;
rtb.Text = "something";
rtb.SelectAll();
rtb.SelectionColor = Color.Black;
rtb.SelectedText = String.Empty;

For multiline text, a label won't do. My solution is to set the Enter event on the textbox and redirect the focus elsewhere. E.g.

    private void textBox1_Enter(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        this.anotherControl.Focus(); // Preferably a readonly control in case the user starts typing
    }

In WinForms, the correct method is to assign the event MouseMove and set the SelectionLength to 0.

I´ve tried here and works perfectly.

private void textBox5_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    this.textBox5.SelectionStart = this.textBox5.Text.Length;
}

I know this is an old question, but the correct and simple answer is :

SelectionOpacity = 0;

this works for both TextBox and RichTextBox in WPF.

guys!

Fell free to try this solution: first, create a derived class from original RichTextBox. In the constructor, set Selectable and UserMouse style flags:

public class MyRichTextBox : RichTextBox
{
    public MyRichTextBox()
    {
        SetStyle(ControlStyles.Selectable, false);
        SetStyle(ControlStyles.UserMouse, true);
    }
}

Then, use it instead of original:

private void InitializeComponent()
{
    ...
    this.richTextBox1 = new MyRichTextBox();
    ...

Also, you can set those behaiour flags, to avoid unnessesery user interactions:

this.richTextBox1.Cursor = System.Windows.Forms.Cursors.Default;
this.richTextBox1.ReadOnly = true;
this.richTextBox1.ShortcutsEnabled = false;