Hi.
In my search for a suitable way to display HTML rich text I discovered that a nice solution for my project would be to ‘abuse’ a GridView control for that purpose. The formatting possibilities of the grid itself and it’s cells, combined with the Rich Text displayed in those cells are manifold.
I  have created a small project to demonstrate this.
It uses a GridView with only one column to display differently formatted text in each cell.

Works fine for me, but there is one problem that – if solved – would make it really ideal: how to fit text in each cell. To do this, I have to set each cell’s height so that the text will be visible as it should. That can of course be done, but the intention is to use this to display help text or instructions in different languages. As we know, some languages need more words to explain things. And that will or can ruin the layout.
The solution would be that Rows[x].Height changes automatically when any cell in that row ‘WordWraps’ it’s content.
Either I don’t find it, or it’s not possible (yet). I found a topic about this here:
https://gambas-user.na…bas-3-grid-table-question
where Benoit Minisini writes:
“In Gambas 3, WordWrap is a property attached to the cell. And to adjust the
width of a row or a column, you must set its height (or width) to "-1". But,
if I remember well, it is not implemented in gb.gtk yet.”
However, that post is 10 years old ….
It didn’t work when I tried. Has a solution been found since then?

Sorry, forgot to mention: when you run the project, clicking on the grid will toggle grid lines on and off.

You can do it manually using RichTextSize command

I think you would be better off with a TextLabel. I have looked at your code and modified it, hopefully this will help. See what happens when the form is resized.

<IMG src="https://www.cogier.com/gambas/TextLabel1.png"> </IMG><IMG src="https://www.cogier.com/gambas/TextLabel2.png"> </IMG>

Cogier : Thanks for the HTML demonstration. It seems that a lot more is possible than mentioned in the Gambas manual (/doc/richtext - Gambas Documentation) .
I will however need the best of both worlds and use a GridView when I want to display graphics and text in one or more columns.

Bruce : Sorry, seems that doesn’t work. I suppose I’ve added the necessary declarations and copied your code.

I got an error : Unknown symbol ‘RichTextSize’ in class ‘Font’ in Form ….
I tried to figure out what was wrong – typing error perhaps – so I started to enter that line ‘manually’  
And was presented with this when I arrived at …

(Click to enlarge)

There is no RichTextSize.
One more question – provided RichTextSize can be made to work : I suppose I can use
hRect = MyGrid[0,0].Font.RichTextSize(sText, iWidth)
If so, I can indeed determine the hight to set Row 0 to.

Odd , i copy and pasted the text straight from the Label.class in gb.gui.base…

I just checked and have Font.RichtextSize on Form, Me, and Gridview using gambas 3.16


Also i noticed in your code example That iWidth was not given a value

RichTextHeight should do the same then.
(no need to use Rect just use an integer)

Maybe this one liner…

 I just found something, but it’s way beyond my pay grade.
I checked the project properties and noticed that in ‘Components’ ‘gb.qt4’ is disabled.
I tried to enable it, but got a message that gb.gui and gb.qt4 are incompatible.
So I disabled gb.gui and now RichTextSize no longer gives an error.
But many controls have now diappeared.
Does this mean anything to you?

Doctor Watson said

I just found something, but it’s way beyond my pay grade.
I checked the project properties and noticed that in ‘Components’ ‘gb.qt4’ is disabled.
I tried to enable it, but got a message that gb.gui and gb.qt4 are incompatible.
So I disabled gb.gui and now RichTextSize no longer gives an error.
But many controls have now diappeared.
Does this mean anything to you?

gb.gui is a switcher component.  it checks your system and loads either gb.gtk2 gb.gtk3 gb.qt4 or gb.qt5 depending on your system.
so you can't have gb.qt4 and gb.gui together

independently they can lack some features.
I think gb.gui loads gb.gui.base and translates some gtk/qt things for overall compatibility.
but loading one or the other explicitly will limit you to only the components in the gui class.

i am only using gb.gui and i have RichTextSize()
Just use RichTextHeight()
it's less complicated and you are able to see that command.

for me RichTextSize works perfect with qt4 qt5 gtk2 gtk3 …

if you want to use Font.RichTextSize("BlahBlubb") you need an object too ->

or you can do like

Hi everybody
I’ve been rather busy to get this project working. As Cogier pointed out, it could perhaps be written entirely in HTML, but there are options – for me at least – can be achieved easier with GridView, combined with it’s option to edit cells with HTML.
I suppose things would be easier if I could use RichTextSize but – PJBlack – I tried it once more and no result on this machine. Or is it me ?  :?
I have now a new version of a grid that really works after much trial & error.  
First, RichRextHeight only sets the cell’s height to fit text ‘written’ with a choosen Font. When a long text gets wrapped, the cell’s height just stays the same. But you can use the text width and the cell’s width. Now the tricky part was how to count the number of text lines in the cell.
Then you just multiply cell height with the number of lines.
Have a look and play with a different font and size in line 64 and the text in lines 86 to 94.
I only tested what happens with HTML markup I want to use. Do not use <p> or <h1> as that will ruin things.
It would be nice if everything worked already perfectly. Not so. With some font sizes or certain text lenghts, the lines routine counts one or two lines where it shouldn’t. When gridlines are turned off, this is hardly noticed but I would like to get this completely right.
Back to the drawing table …

1/. The reason the panel you wanted did not work is that you needed to 'Arrange' it so the GridView could expand.
2/. It took some experimentation, but I think you will find that the cells will now auto adjust.
3/. The .Font.Underline works for me.

<IMG src="https://www.cogier.com/gambas/GViewProject.png"> </IMG>

Here is the modified code: -

Well I’ll be damned!  All hail Cougier!
Let’s go back to the very beginning of this topic:

The solution would be that Rows[x].Height changes automatically when any cell in that row ‘WordWraps’ it’s content.
Either I don’t find it, or it’s not possible (yet). I found a topic about this here:
https://gambas-user.na…om/CSTpFWV … e-question
where Benoit Minisini writes:
“In Gambas 3, WordWrap is a property attached to the cell. And to adjust the
width of a row or a column, you must set its height (or width) to "-1". But,
if I remember well, it is not implemented in gb.gtk yet.”

Right there I got it wrong. As I wanted all of the GridView cells to adapt their Hight, I did put the command with the ‘general’ properties of MyGrid:

With MyGrid = New GridView(MyPanel) As "MyGrid"
    .Rows.Count = 20
    .Rows.Height = -1

And as this doesn’t produce an error, I assumed Benoit was right with “if I remember well, it is not implemented in gb.gtk yet”.
Only it had been, but I hadn’t cosidered setting Row Height at Cell level.
I have played a bit with the possibilities this property offers, such as applying it to a whole GridView. Just run the code below.
PS : : Thanks once more Cogier. Never heard about that method before.

I'm glad it helped. I have tried your code which works well.

Before publishing code I suggest you run from the Project menu Compile all. This would have told you about the unused variables. Also, there is no need to make H = 0 as it is that when you create it.

<IMG src="https://www.cogier.com/gambas/CompileAll.png"> </IMG>