ListView in C#
A ListView control provides an interface to display a list of
items using different views including text, small images, and large images.
In this tutorial, we will learn how to create a ListView control.
We will also see how to create multiple views of ListView items. This article
also covers most of the properties and methods of the ListView control.
Creating a ListView
There
are two approaches to create a ListView control in Windows Forms. Either we can
use the Forms designer to create a control at design-time or we can use the ListView
class to create a control at run-time.
Design-time
In
our first approach, we are going to create a ListView control at design-time
using the Forms designer.
To
create a ListView control at design-time, we simply drag and drop a ListView control
from Toolbox onto a Form in Visual Studio. After you drag and drop a ListView onto
a Form, the ListView looks like Figure 1. Once a ListView is on the Form, you
can move it around and resize it using mouse and set its properties and events.
Figure 1
Run-time
The ListView class represents a ListView control in Windows
Forms. To create a ListView control at run-time, we create an instance of the ListView
class, set its properties and add ListView object to the Form controls.
First step to create a dynamic ListView is to create an
instance of ListView class. The following code snippet creates a ListView
control object.
ListView ListView1 = new ListView();
In the next step, you may set properties of a ListView
control. The following code snippet sets location, width, height, background
color, foreground color, Text, Name, and Font properties of a ListView.
ListView1.Location = new
System.Drawing.Point(12, 12);
ListView1.Name = "ListView1";
ListView1.Size = new
System.Drawing.Size(245, 200);
ListView1.BackColor = System.Drawing.Color.Orange;
ListView1.ForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.Black;
Once the ListView
control is ready with its properties, the next step is to add the ListView to a
Form. To do so, we use Form.Controls.Add method that adds ListView control to
the Form controls and displays on the Form based on the location and size of
the control. The following code snippet adds a ListView control to the current
Form.
Controls.Add(ListView1);
Setting ListView
Properties
The easiest way to set properties is from the Properties Window.
You can open Properties window by pressing F4 or right click on a control and
select Properties menu item. The Properties window looks like Figure 2.
Figure 2
Name
Name property represents a unique name of a ListView
control. It is used to access the control in the code. The following code
snippet sets and gets the name and text of a ListView control.
ListView1.Name = "ListView1";
Location,
Height, Width and Size
The Location property takes a Point that specifies the
starting position of the ListView on a Form. You may also use Left and Top
properties to specify the location of a control from the left top corner of the
Form. The Size property specifies the
size of the control. We can also use Width and Height property instead of Size
property. The following code snippet sets Location, Width, and Height
properties of a ListView control.
ListView1.Location = new
System.Drawing.Point(12, 12);
ListView1.Size = new
System.Drawing.Size(245, 200);
Font
Font property represents the font of text of a ListView
control. If you click on the Font property in Properties window, you will see
Font name, size and other font options. The following code snippet sets Font
property at run-time.
ListView1.Font = new Font("Georgia",
16);
Background
and Foreground
BackColor and ForeColor properties are used to set background and
foreground color of a ListView respectively. If you click on these properties
in Properties window, the Color Dialog pops up.
Alternatively, you can set background and foreground colors at
run-time. The following code snippet sets BackColor and ForeColor properties.
ListView1.BackColor = System.Drawing.Color.Orange;
ListView1.ForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.Black;
The new ListView with background and foreground
looks like Figure 3.
Figure 3
You can also set borders style of a ListView by using the
BorderStyle property. The BorderStyle property is represented by a BorderStyle
enumeration that has three values – FixedSingle, Fixed3D, and None. The default value of border style is Fixed3D.
The following code snippet sets the border style of a ListView to FixedSingle.
ListView1.BorderStyle = BorderStyle.FixedSingle;
ListView
Items
The Items property is used to add and work with items in a ListView.
We can add items to a ListView at design-time from Properties Window by
clicking on Items Collection as you can see in Figure 4.
Figure 4
When you click on the Collections, the ListView Collection
Editor window will pop up where you can type strings. Each line added to this
collection will become a ListView item. I add four items as you can see from
Figure 5.
Figure 5
The ListView looks like Figure 6.
Figure 6
You can add same items at run-time by using the following
code snippet.
ListView1.Items.Add("Mahesh
Chand");
ListView1.Items.Add("Mike
Gold");
ListView1.Items.Add("Praveen
Kumar");
ListView1.Items.Add("Raj
Beniwal");
Getting All
Items
To get all items, we use the Items property and loop through
it to read all the items. The following
code snippet loops through all items and adds item contents to a StringBuilder
and displays in a MessageBox.
private void GetItemsButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs
e)
{
System.Text.StringBuilder sb = new System.Text.StringBuilder();
foreach (object item in ListView1.Items)
{
sb.Append(item.ToString());
sb.Append(" ");
}
MessageBox.Show(sb.ToString());
}
Selected Text
and Item
Text property is used to set and get text of a ListView. The
following code snippet sets and gets current text of a ListView.
MessageBox.Show(ListView1.Text);
We can also get text associated with currently selected item
by using Items property.
string selectedItem = ListView1.Items[ListView1.SelectedIndex].ToString();
Why the value
of ListView.SelectedText is Empty?
SelectedText property gets and sets the selected text in a ListView
only when a ListView has focus on it. If the focus moves away from a ListView,
the value of SelectedText will be an empty string. To get current text in a ListView
when it does not have focus, use Text property.
Selection
Mode and Selecting Items
SelectionMode property defines how items are selected in a ListView.
The SelectionMode value can be one of the following four SelectionMode
enumeration values.
- None - No item can be selected.
- One - Only one item can be selected.
- MultiSimple - Multiple items can be selected.
- MultiExtended - Multiple items can be selected, and the user can
use the SHIFT, CTRL, and arrow keys to make selections.
To select an item in a ListView, we can use the SetSelect method
that takes item index and a true or false value where true value represent the
item to be selected.
The following code snippet make a ListView multiple selection and
selects second and third item in the list.
ListView1.SelectionMode = SelectionMode.MultiSimple;
ListView1.SetSelected(1, true);
ListView1.SetSelected(2, true);
We can clear all selected items by calling ClearSelected method.
ListView1.ClearSelected();
How to
disable item selection in a ListView?
Just set SelectionMode property to None.
Sorting Items
The Sorted property set to true, the ListView items are
sorted. The following code snippet sorts the ListView items.
ListView1.Sorted = true;
Find Items
The FindString method is used to find a string or substring
in a ListView. The following code snippet finds a string in a ListView and
selects it if found.
private void
FindItemButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
ListView1.ClearSelected();
int index = ListView1.FindString(textBox1.Text);
if (index < 0)
{
MessageBox.Show("Item
not found.");
textBox1.Text = String.Empty;
}
else
{
ListView1.SelectedIndex
= index;
}
}
ListView SelectedIndexChanged Event
Hander
SelectedIndexChanged
event is fired when the item selection is changed in a ListView. You can add
the event handler using the Properties Widow and selecting on Event icon and
double click on SelectedIndexChanged as you can see in Figure 7.
Figure
7
The following code
snippet defines and implements these events and their respective event
handlers. You can use this same code to implement event at run-time.
ListView1.SelectedIndexChanged += new EventHandler(ListView1_SelectedIndexChanged);
private void ListView1_SelectedIndexChanged(object sender, System.EventArgs
e)
{
MessageBox.Show(ListView1.SelectedItem.ToString());
}
Now every time you
change the selection in the ListView, you will see the selected item displayed
in a MessageBox.
Data Binding
DataSource property is used to bind a collection of items to a ListView.
The following code snippet is a simple data binding example where an ArrayList
is bound to a ListView.
private void
DataBindingButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
ArrayList authors = new ArrayList();
authors.Add("Mahesh Chand");
authors.Add("Mike Gold");
authors.Add("Raj Kumar");
authors.Add("Praveen Kumar");
ListView1.Items.Clear();
ListView1.DataSource
= authors;
}
If you are binding an object with multiple properites, you must
specify which property you are displaying by using the DisplayMember property.
ListView1.DataSource = GetData();
ListView1.DisplayMember = "Name";
Summary
In this article, we discussed discuss how to create a ListView
control in Windows Forms. After that, we saw how to use various properties and methods.
I am planning to extend this article to add more topics including multiple
columns, multiple views, header with images and so on.
Further Readings
Here are some more articles and tutorials in ListView that you may
want to read.
- Transferring data from one ListBox to another in WPF by Mahesh Chand on
Jul 27, 2008
- Owner Draw ListView Control with Images by vasu_0203 on
Jul 03, 2009
- Editable ListView in C# by gautam shrestha on
Feb 01, 2006
- Databinding in ListView from XML file by Praveen Moosad on
Nov 13, 2009
- Using ListView in C# by devinder arora on
Dec 28, 2005
- Adding & Retrieving items from ListView and check list box by gautam shrestha on
Dec 27, 2005
- Owner Draw ListView Control in Windows Forms and C# by Sanjay Ahuja on
May 01, 2009
- Editable ListView Control by Shripad Kulkarni on
May 08, 2009
- Adding Items to a ListBox by Mahesh Chand on
Jan 19, 2006
- Checked ListBox Control In C# by Prasad H on
Jun 02, 2009
- Editable ListView Control by Shripad Kulkarni on
Dec 30, 2005