Right justified combobox in C#

Question

By default the items in the C# Combobox are left aligned. Are there any options available to change this justification apart from overriding DrawItem method and setting the combobox drawmode --> DrawMode.OwnerDrawFixed?

Cheers

Answer 1

You could just set the control style to RightToLeft = RightToLeft.Yes if you don't mind the drop widget on the other side as well.

or

set DrawMode = OwnerDrawFixed; and hook the DrawItem event, then something like

    private void comboBox1_DrawItem(object sender, DrawItemEventArgs e)
    {
        if (e.Index == -1)
            return;
        ComboBox combo = ((ComboBox) sender);
        using (SolidBrush brush = new SolidBrush(e.ForeColor))
        {
            e.DrawBackground();
            e.Graphics.DrawString(combo.Items[e.Index].ToString(), e.Font, brush, e.Bounds, new StringFormat(StringFormatFlags.DirectionRightToLeft));
            e.DrawFocusRectangle();
        }
    }

Answer 2

In WPF this would be as easy as specifying an ItemContainerStyle. In Windows Forms it's a little trickier. Without custom drawing, you could set the RightToLeft property on the ComboBox but this would unfortunately also affect the drop down button.

Since Windows Forms uses a native ComboBox, and Windows doesn't have a ComboBox style like ES_RIGHT that affects the text alignment, I think your only option is to resort to owner draw. It would probably be a good idea to derive a class from ComboBox and add a TextAlignment property or something. Then you would only apply your drawing if TextAlignment was centered or right aligned.