Prompt Dialog in Windows Forms

Solution 1:

You need to create your own Prompt dialog. You could perhaps create a class for this.

public static class Prompt
{
    public static string ShowDialog(string text, string caption)
    {
        Form prompt = new Form()
        {
            Width = 500,
            Height = 150,
            FormBorderStyle = FormBorderStyle.FixedDialog,
            Text = caption,
            StartPosition = FormStartPosition.CenterScreen
        };
        Label textLabel = new Label() { Left = 50, Top=20, Text=text };
        TextBox textBox = new TextBox() { Left = 50, Top=50, Width=400 };
        Button confirmation = new Button() { Text = "Ok", Left=350, Width=100, Top=70, DialogResult = DialogResult.OK };
        confirmation.Click += (sender, e) => { prompt.Close(); };
        prompt.Controls.Add(textBox);
        prompt.Controls.Add(confirmation);
        prompt.Controls.Add(textLabel);
        prompt.AcceptButton = confirmation;

        return prompt.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK ? textBox.Text : "";
    }
}

And calling it:

string promptValue = Prompt.ShowDialog("Test", "123");

Update:

Added default button (enter key) and initial focus based on comments and another question.

Solution 2:

Add reference to Microsoft.VisualBasic and use this into your C# code:

string input = Microsoft.VisualBasic.Interaction.InputBox("Prompt", 
                       "Title", 
                       "Default", 
                       0, 
                       0);

To add the refernce: right-click on the References in your Project Explorer window then on Add Reference, and check VisualBasic from that list.

Solution 3:

There is no such thing natively in Windows Forms.

You have to create your own form for that or:

use the Microsoft.VisualBasic reference.

Inputbox is legacy code brought into .Net for VB6 compatibility - so i advise to not do this.

Solution 4:

It's generally not a real good idea to import the VisualBasic libraries into C# programs (not because they won't work, but just for compatibility, style, and ability to upgrade), but you can call Microsoft.VisualBasic.Interaction.InputBox() to display the kind of box you're looking for.

If you can create a Windows.Forms object, that would be best, but you say you cannot do that.