How to use `TextGetOptions` in `RichEditBox.TextDocument().GetText()` method with WinUI3 C++

Question

I am using WinUI3 on C++ windows app. And I have to pass TextGetOptions to TextDocument().GetText() according to the document and visual studio intellisense.

void MainWindow::TextPreviewKeyDown(IInspectable const& sender, KeyRoutedEventArgs const& e)
{
    RichEditBox richEditBox = sender.as<RichEditBox>();
    hstring OldText;
    richEditBox.TextDocument().GetText(TextGetOptions::None, OldText);//First Argument
}

But the intellesense shows error for TextGetOptions::None. It says: "Argument for winrt::Windows::UI::Text::TextGetOptions is incompatible with the argument of const winrt::Microsoft::UI::Text::TextGetOptions &"

Compiler error: C2664 cannot convert argument 1 from winrt::Windows::UI::Text::TextGetOptions to const winrt::Microsoft::UI::Text::TextGetOptions &.

Here is the method of GetText()

void GetText(TextGetOptions const& options, [Out] winrt::hstring const& & value);

I have been using WinUI3 with C# for a long time but I am not familiar with WinUI3 in C++. I only know that "&" means the pointer of options. And the answer from Bing Copilot is simply the same as what I did. How can I solve this?

Answer 1

The issue here is that TextGetOptions is declared in two different namespaces: winrt::Windows::UI::Text and winrt::Microsoft::UI::Text. As such, the types are assumed to be different by the compiler, and a conversion from one to the other isn't available.

To fix the issue you'll have to either

• drop the using statement that merges winrt::Windows::UI::Text into the local namespace, or
• use a fully qualified type name (e.g., winrt::Microsoft::UI::Text::TextGetOptions::None in place of TextGetOptions::None).

---

A bit of background information: Windows 8 introduced a new UI platform (that remains without a name to this day). It shipped as part of the operating system, and its API was exposed in a namespace starting with Windows.

The UI platform was later split out from the OS and moved into its own library called "WinUI 2". Since WinUI 2 was no longer part of the OS its API also moved from a namespace starting with Windows to a namespace beginning with Microsoft. The "old" API under the Windows namespace is still available (and supported) causing frequent head-scratching and pain.