Highlight Current Line of RichTextBox

Question

This highlights the entire width of each line by painting a transparent color as the backcolor on the current line. When the line switches, the original background color is restored.

So, what we want to do is:

Verify the previous and current rectangles don't match, so not to paint the same area twice
Replace the last line's highlight using the controls backcolor
Highlight the current line using a transparent color
Set mLastHighlight with the index and rectangle for each applied line

However, when removing the highlight, the text is painted over. This does not occur when applying the highlight.

One solution would be to repaint the text back on the control after resetting the back color. though the text formatting, selection colors, font styles, hyperlinks, etc would be tedious to filter. Not very elegant.

This leads to a simpler solution, refreshing the control. Though that would cause massive flickering. Not acceptable either.

Is there an elegant solution? I'm completely baffled why this occurs.

EDIT: Edited to reflect Code Gray's response.

using System;

public class RTBHL : RichTextBox
{
    private LastHighlight mLastHighlight = new LastHighlight(0, Rectangle.Empty);

    private class LastHighlight
    {
        public int mCharIndex;
        public Rectangle mRectangle;

        public LastHighlight(int index, Rectangle r)
        {
            mCharIndex = index;
            mRectangle = r;
        }
    }

    public void PaintLineHighlight()
    {
        using (Graphics g = this.CreateGraphics)
        {
            // highlight color
            Color c = Color.Beige;
            // current pen color
            Pen cp = new Pen(Color.Beige);
            // color for removing highlight
            Pen lp = new Pen(this.BackColor);
            // brush for removing highlight
            SolidBrush lb = new SolidBrush(this.BackColor);
            // brush for applying highlight
            SolidBrush cb = new SolidBrush(Color.FromArgb(64, c.R, c.G, c.B));
            // index of the current line
            int index = this.GetFirstCharIndexOfCurrentLine;
            // rectangle to specify which region to paint too
            Rectangle r = new Rectangle();

            // specify dimensions
            r.X = 0;
            r.Y = this.GetPositionFromCharIndex(index).Y;
            r.Width = this.HorizontalScrollBarWidth;
            r.Height = Convert.ToInt32(this.Font.Height * this.ZoomFactor);

            // this will always be true unless the current line remains the same
            if (!(mLastHighlight.mCharIndex == index) && !(mLastHighlight.mRectangle == r))
            {
                // remove the last highlight. regardless of the brush specified, white is always applied, and the text is painted over
                g.DrawRectangle(lp, mLastHighlight.mRectangle);
                g.FillRectangle(lb, mLastHighlight.mRectangle);
                // apply highlight to the current line
                g.DrawRectangle(cp, r);
                g.FillRectangle(cb, r);
            }

            mLastHighlight = new LastHighlight(index, r);
        }
    }

#region RichScrollBars
    [DllImport("user32.dll")]
    [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)]
    private static extern bool GetScrollInfo(IntPtr hWnd, int fnBar, ref SCROLLINFO si);

    [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
    public class SCROLLINFO
    {
        public int cbSize;
        public int fMask;
        public int nMin;
        public int nMax;
        public int nPage;
        public int nPos;
        public int nTrackPos;
        public SCROLLINFO()
        {
            this.cbSize = Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(SCROLLINFO));
        }

        public SCROLLINFO(int mask, int min, int max, int page, int pos)
        {
            this.cbSize = Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(SCROLLINFO));
            this.fMask = mask;
            this.nMin = min;
            this.nMax = max;
            this.nPage = page;
            this.nPos = pos;
        }
    }

    private const int SIF_ALL = 0X17;
    private const int SB_HORZ = 0;
    private const int SB_VERT = 1;

    public int HorizontalScrollBarWidth()
    {
        SCROLLINFO si = new SCROLLINFO() {fMask = SIF_ALL};
        GetScrollInfo(this.Handle, SB_HORZ, si);

        return Math.Max(si.nMax, this.Width);
    }

    public int VerticalScrollBarHeight()
    {
        SCROLLINFO si = new SCROLLINFO() {fMask = SIF_ALL};
        GetScrollInfo(this.Handle, SB_VERT, si);

        return Math.Max(si.nMax, this.Height);
    }
#endregion
}

Highlight Current Line of RichTextBox

Answers (1)

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