MessgeBox in VB.NET

MessageBox control displays a message with specified text. A message box may have some additional options including a caption, icon, and help buttons. In this article, I will discuss how to use the MessageBox class to display messages in Windows Forms and C#.
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MessageBox control displays a message with specified text. A message box may have some additional options including a caption, icon, and help buttons. In this article, I will discuss how to use the MessageBox class to display messages in Windows Forms and C#.

MessageBox class has an overloaded static Show method that is used to display a message. Here are most of the forms of MessageBox.

Simple MessageBox

The simplest form of a MessageBox is a dialog with a text and OK button. The following code snippet creates a simple MessageBox.

Dim message As String = "Simple MessageBox"

MessageBox.Show(message)

 MsgBoxImg1.jpg

MessageBox with Title

The following code snippet creates a simple MessageBox with a title.

Dim message As String = "Simple MessageBox"

Dim title As String = "Title"

MessageBox.Show(message, title)
 

MsgBoxImg2.jpg

MessageBox with Buttons

A MessageBox can have different kinds of button combination such as YesNo or OKCancel. The MessageBoxButtons enumeration represents the buttons to be displayed on a MessageBox and has following values.

  • OK
  • OKCancel
  • AbortRetryIgnore
  • YesNoCancel
  • YesNo
  • RetryCancel

The following code snippet creates a MessageBox with a title and Yes and No buttons. This is a typical MessageBox you may call when you want to close an application. If Yes button is clicked, the application will be closed. The Show method returns a DialogResult enumeration.

Dim message As String = "Do you want to close this window?"

        Dim title As String = "Close Window"

        Dim buttons As MessageBoxButtons = MessageBoxButtons.YesNo

        Dim result As DialogResult = MessageBox.Show(message, title, buttons)

        If (result = DialogResult.Yes) Then

            Me.Close()

        Else

        End If

MsgBoxImg3.jpg

MessageBox with Icon

A MessageBox can display an icon on the dialog. A MessageBoxIcons enumeration represents an icon to be displayed on a MessageBox and has following values.

  • None
  • Hand
  • Question
  • Exclamation
  • Asterisk
  • Stop
  • Error
  • Warning
  • Information

The following code snippet creates a MessageBox with a title, buttons, and an icon.

Dim message As String = "Do you want to abort this operation?"

Dim title As String = "Close Window"

Dim buttons As MessageBoxButtons = MessageBoxButtons.AbortRetryIgnore

Dim result As DialogResult = MessageBox.Show(message, title, buttons, MessageBoxIcon.Warning)

If (result = DialogResult.Abort) Then

  Me.Close()

Else

End If

 

  MsgBoxImg4.jpg

MessageBox with Default Button

We can also set the default button on a MessageBox. By default, the first button is the default button. The MessageBoxDefaultButton enumeration is used for this purpose and it has following three values.

  • Button1
  • Button2
  • Button3

The following code snippet creates a MessageBox with a title, buttons, and an icon and sets second button as a default button.

Dim message As String = "Do you want to abort this operation?"

Dim title As String = "Close Window"

Dim buttons As MessageBoxButtons = MessageBoxButtons.AbortRetryIgnore

Dim result As DialogResult = MessageBox.Show(message, title, buttons, MessageBoxIcon.Warning, MessageBoxDefaultButton.Button2)

If (result = DialogResult.Abort) Then

  Me.Close()

Else

End If

 

MsgBoxImg5.jpg
 

MessageBox with Message Options

MessageBoxOptions enumeration represents various options and has following values.

  • ServiceNotification
  • DefaultDesktopOnly
  • RightAlign
  • RtlReading

The following code snippet creates a MessageBox with various options.

Dim result As DialogResult = MessageBox.Show(message, title, buttons, MessageBoxIcon.Warning, MessageBoxDefaultButton.Button2,
MessageBoxOptions.RightAlign Or MessageBoxOptions.RtlReading)

MsgBoxImg6.jpg

MessageBox with Help Button

A MessageBox can have an extra button called Help button. This is useful when we need to display a help file. The following code snippet creates a MessageBox with a Help button.

Dim result As DialogResult = MessageBox.Show(message, title, buttons, MessageBoxIcon.Warning, MessageBoxDefaultButton.Button2,
MessageBoxOptions.RightAlign Or MessageBoxOptions.RtlReading, True)

MsgBoxImg7.jpg
 

We can also specify a help file when the Help button is clicked. The following code snippet references a help file.

DialogResult result = MessageBox.Show(message, title,

                buttons, MessageBoxIcon.Question,

                MessageBoxDefaultButton.Button1, 0, "helpfile.chm")

Summary

In this article, we discussed discuss how to create and use a MessageBox in a Windows Forms application.

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