Listview advantages?

[Mike Doty]

Never used Listview until today and have been very impressed.
Can the control be as fast as using a grid? Can it be used in a virtual mode?
Is the control a good alternative to using a grid?
Is the control good for displaying data aligned in columns?
Is the control good for sorting data?
Can the listview display grid lines?
Where is the best documention on using Listview?
Thank you.

[Russ Srole]

Can the control be as fast as using a grid? Yes
Can it be used in a virtual mode? Yes
Is the control a good alternative to using a grid? Yes
Is the control good for displaying data aligned in columns? Yes
Is the control good for sorting data? Yes
Can the listview display grid lines? Yes
Where is the best documention on using Listview? Around here or search poffs

[Mike Doty]

Thank you!
Found a lot of information.
Should have used this before.

Not sure why I'm not getting emails when someone responds to this thread? Have Instant email notifcation is enabled.
Duh, turned off popwiz while testing the new port monitor.

Already have a good looking port monitor using the Listview.
1) Now trying to figure out how to get scrollbars?
2) How to sort numerically instead of by string the port number column?

[Joe Byrne]

Mike,

About the only thing I don't like about the listview control, is its inability to edit anything but the first column. I've seen some ways around this, but basically, the control is useful mainly for display and not entry.

What I usually do however, is create a series of text boxes beneath the LV control that match up with the columns. Then when a row is selected, I populate these edit boxes. Any changes the user wants to make are done in the edit box and then the LV is updated. There is a way to set a long value for each row which I sometimes use as a flag to indicate changed data that needs to be saved. Also, if you set the last column with a length of -1, the column is essentially hidden (there is an easy way to prevent the column from being resized if you need) making it an excellent way to store database keys for fast access later on.

The LV is a very functional control. I can't say that I've written a program in the past few years without at least a few of them.

[Mike Doty]

Thanks for the info!
I've been using Flexcell http://www.grid2000.com but it requires COM.
My port monitor is under 10K! The one I've used NetMon was 509K.

[Chris Holbrook]

Mike,

About the only thing I don't ...create a series of text boxes beneath the LV control that match up with the columns.

I've been thinking about that, but how do you handle resizing a column? do you recreate the text boxen when the resize event occurs if so, how?

[Michael Mattias]

>do you recreate the text box

You could just resize the text box; there's no need to recreate it.

[Joe Byrne]

I've been thinking about that, but how do you handle resizing a column? do you recreate the text boxen when the resize event occurs if so, how?

Chris,
That is an issue. At this time, I haven't really dealt with it. My forms are, for the most part, fixed. I use Lance Edmound's Resize32 utility to allow dynamic resizing of my forms, and it works great, except for the text box alignment with the LV columns. So what I do is exclude the LV from resizing. Most of the time, the form still looks pretty good, but if the user drags the width of the columns, things get out of whack.

If/when it becomes an issue, I'll have to look into synchronizing the size of the text boxes with the column widths. I'm pretty sure its not all that difficult, but until I hear some complaints I'll just back-burner it for now.

[Chris Holbrook]

Joe,

I've approached th same thing by popping up a dialog to edit the row "exploded" which is a bit crude but reliable.

Column size can (they tell me) be got by

lResult = SendMessage( // returns LRESULT in lResult
(HWND) hWndControl, // handle to destination control
(UINT) LVM_GETCOLUMNWIDTH, // message ID
(WPARAM) wParam, // = (WPARAM) (int) iCol;
(LPARAM) lParam // = 0; not used, must be zero );

Any idea what message results from resizing?

[Michael Mattias]

>Any idea what message results from resizing [columns of listview]?

You get WM_NOTIFY/HDN_ENDTRACK with nmhdr.hWndFrom = Listview_GetHeader (hWndLV)

MCM

[Chris Holbrook]

Ah, I see, it's all in here http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms671799.aspx

[Chris Holbrook]

After a bit of self-education I found the code below (couple of minor changes) in this very forum posted by Jose Dario Vega Higuera, which puts an editbox over the listview "cell". All that's needed now is the item and subitem indices:

'--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FUNCTION SDCLVEditField ( hDlg AS LONG, iDCtl AS LONG, nRow AS LONG, nCol AS LONG, cType AS BYTE) AS LONG

'Creates an edit field

LOCAL Dummy AS STRING, szText AS ASCIIZ * 255, xy AS RECT, hCtl AS LONG
LOCAL tLVC AS LV_COLUMN

LOCAL x1 AS LONG, y1 AS LONG, x2 AS LONG, y2 AS LONG

LOCAL Dummy() AS STRING
DIM Dummy(10)

FOR x1 = 0 TO 9
Dummy(x1) = "TEST 0" & TRIM$(STR$(x1))
NEXT

CONTROL HANDLE hDlg, iDCtl TO hCtl
IF ListView_GetItemCount(hCtl) THEN
ListView_GetItemText(hCtl, nRow, nCol, szText, SIZEOF(szText))
ListView_GetSubItemRect(hCtl, nRow, nCol, %LVIR_BOUNDS, VARPTR(xy))
IF nCol = 0 THEN
tLVC.mask = %LVCF_WIDTH
ListView_GetColumn hCtl, 0, tLVC
xy.nRight = tLVC.cx
END IF
DIALOG GET CLIENT hDlg TO x1, y1
DIALOG UNITS hDlg, x1, y1 TO PIXELS x1, y1
IF xy.nRight > x1 THEN ' Check if Edit fits in Dialog
ListView_Scroll hCtl, (xy.nRight - x1) * 3, 0
END IF
CONTROL GET LOC hDlg, iDCtl TO x1, y1 ' Check if Edit fits in Dialog
IF xy.nLeft < x1 THEN
ListView_Scroll hCtl, (x1 - xy.nLeft) * -3, 0
END IF
y2 = xy.nBottom - xy.nTop
ListView_GetSubItemRect(hCtl, nRow, nCol, %LVIR_BOUNDS, VARPTR(xy))
IF nCol = 0 THEN
tLVC.mask = %LVCF_WIDTH
ListView_GetColumn hCtl, 0, tLVC
xy.nRight = tLVC.cx
END IF
DIALOG PIXELS hDlg, x2, y2 TO UNITS x2, y2
DIALOG PIXELS hDlg, xy.nLeft, xy.nBottom TO UNITS xy.nLeft, xy.nBottom
DIALOG PIXELS hDlg, xy.nRight, xy.nTop TO UNITS xy.nRight, xy.nTop

CONTROL ADD TEXTBOX, hDlg, %IDC_TEMP, "", xy.nLeft + x1 + 1, xy.nTop + y1 + 1, xy.nRight - xy.nLeft, y2, _
%WS_CHILD OR %WS_VISIBLE OR %WS_BORDER OR %WS_TABSTOP OR %ES_LEFT OR %ES_AUTOHSCROLL, _
%WS_EX_LEFT OR %WS_EX_LTRREADING
END SELECT
Dummy = TRIM$(szText)
CONTROL DISABLE hDlg, iDCtl
CONTROL SET TEXT hDlg, %IDC_TEMP, Dummy
CONTROL SEND hDlg, %IDC_TEMP, %EM_SETSEL, LEN(Dummy), LEN(Dummy) ' End of text
CONTROL SET FOCUS hDlg, %IDC_TEMP
FUNCTION = 1
END IF
END FUNCTION

[Chris Holbrook]

so the WM_NOTIFY/HDN_ENDTRACK is a bit of a red herring because if you make the edit box dynamically then you will be doing it on WM_NOTIFY/NM_DBLCLK and you then have a NMLISTVIEW structure containing the item/subitem indices with which to feed the edit box creation function posted above. And while you are editing, the edit control has focus so you can't resize the column at that point. That makes it simpler.

[Michael Mattias]

>so the WM_NOTIFY/HDN_ENDTRACK is a bit of a red herring....

????

Although in this case you'd never use it - because you are ending the edit by destroying the edit control as soon as you get WM_COMMAND/EN_KILLFOCUS - it's what you asked!

If the correct answers lead you astray, ask better questions!!


MCM

[Chris Holbrook]

If the correct answers lead you astray, ask better questions!!

I wasn't complaining, just iterating, don't stress!