Web part property - allow multi-line values

Question

I have the following code in a webpart I am developing.

WebBrowsable(true),
Category("Data"),
WebDisplayName("Banks"),
WebDescription("Banks"),
Personalizable(PersonalizationScope.Shared)]
public string BankNames { get; set; }

When editing the "Shared Webpart Properties", it shows up fine in the "Data" section as shown. However, it has the serious limitation that you can only enter a single (although very long) line of text, as the field is shown as an <input type='text'> element.

Is there any way to make it show up like a <textarea> element, or have a [...] button next to it that will allow people to open a pop-up editor to allow multi-line text?

I am aware that you can create a ToolPart class, but I don't want a special area where the fields are shown and have to be rendered manually - for what I need, it seems like a total overkill.

I am using SharePoint 2007 - is there any simple way to do this?

Answer 1

Christan,

There are no out-of-the-box editorparts that display multilines or anything that have been tailored to your specific needs. The correct way of doing this is to use a custom EditorPart/ToolPart.

Technically, you could probably hack something together with jQuery, but I'll leave to others to explain how to do that. In any case, it would be more of an effort than simply creating a new EditorPart and overriding a couple of methods to get it exactly as you want.

.b