Aligning Array Output in Rich Text Box - arrays

Question

I am working on the same program as a previous question, but now I am having trouble aligning the output of my now-fixed program. I know some of it might look messed up, but somehow I got it to work.
Whatever the case, the output is unaligned with my headings and doesn't look good. I cannot figure out how to fix this.
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Convert
Public Class frmAll
'Declare Streamreader
Private objReader As StreamReader
'Declare arrays to hold the information
Private strNumber(24) As String
Private strName(24) As String
Private strSize(24) As String
Private decCost(24) As Integer
Private Sub frmAll_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
'Set objReader
objReader = New StreamReader("products.csv")
Call FillArray()
End Sub
Private Sub FillArray()
'Declare variables and arrays
Dim decCost(24, 1) As Decimal
Dim strFields() As String
Dim strRec As String
Dim intCount As Integer = 0
Dim chrdelim As Char = ToChar(",")
'Set strRec to read the lines
strRec = objReader.ReadLine
'Do while loop to fill array.
Do While strRec <> Nothing
strFields = strRec.Split(chrdelim)
strNumber(intCount) = strFields(0)
strName(intCount) = strFields(1)
strSize(intCount) = strFields(2)
decCost(intCount, 0) = ToDecimal(strFields(3))
decCost(intCount, 1) = ToDecimal(strFields(4))
'Set strRec to read the lines again
strRec = objReader.ReadLine
'increment the index
intCount += 1
Loop
Call Calculate(decCost)
End Sub
Private Sub Calculate(ByVal numIn(,) As Decimal)
'Define arrays to hold total cost
Dim decRowTotal(24) As Decimal
'Define variables to hold the counters for rows and columns
Dim intR As Integer
Dim intC As Integer
'Calcualte total cost
For intC = 0 To 1
For intR = 0 To 24
decRowTotal(intR) += numIn(intR, intC) * 1
Next
Next
Call Output(numIn, decRowTotal)
End Sub
Private Sub Output(ByVal NumIn(,) As Decimal, ByVal RowTotalIn() As Decimal)
Dim strOut As String
Dim intR As Integer = 0
Dim intC As Integer = 0
strOut = "ID" & vbTab & "Item" & vbTab & vbTab & vbTab & "Size" & vbTab & vbTab & vbTab & vbTab & "Total Price" &
vbCrLf & "--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------" &
vbCrLf
For intC = 0 To 24
strOut &= strNumber(intC) & vbTab
strOut &= strName(intC) & vbTab
strOut &= strSize(intC) & vbTab & vbTab
strOut &= RowTotalIn(intC).ToString("c")
strOut &= vbCrLf
Next
rtbAll.Text = strOut
End Sub
End Class

Answer 1

You are using the wrong tool for this kind of work.
You need a DataGridView instead of a RichTextBox.
With a DataGridView you can adjust the column size at your will.
The approach of using tabs to create pseudocolumns inside the richtextbox fails because, if some text (the item column for example) is longer than the space used to represent a tab, then the next tab will shift to a rightmost position and throughout the rest of the line the text is misaligned.
You can try to minimize the problem adding or removing tabs, but, unless the text pixel length equals the length reserved for your tabs, your columns will be misaligned.
In the link provided below you will find an example of a simple unbound datagridview filled with string data.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/5s3ce6k8(v=vs.100).aspx