Creating columns in listView and add items

Question

I'm learning how to use the listView in a windowsForm and I have some problems that I hope to solve here. The first thing is when I'm creating the columns with the code below:

private void initListView()
    {
        // Add columns
        lvRegAnimals.Columns.Add("Id", -3,HorizontalAlignment.Left);
        lvRegAnimals.Columns.Add("Name", -3, HorizontalAlignment.Left);
        lvRegAnimals.Columns.Add("Age", -3, HorizontalAlignment.Left);
    }

When I run the program, the name of the columns are not visible, they are all at the left corner, and I have to "drag" them to be able to read the text. What have I done wrong?

And finally I wonder how I add items to the columns. Do I first create a object like

ListViewItem item1 = new ListViewItem(???);
item1.SubItems.Add("text");

Is each listViewItem objects a column or a row? How do I add rows of info? Preciate some help! Thanks!

Tom · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-03 13:10:01Z

47

Your first problem is that you are passing -3 to the 2nd parameter of Columns.Add. It needs to be -2 for it to auto-size the column. Source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.listview.columns.aspx (look at the comments on the code example at the bottom)

private void initListView()
{
    // Add columns
    lvRegAnimals.Columns.Add("Id", -2,HorizontalAlignment.Left);
    lvRegAnimals.Columns.Add("Name", -2, HorizontalAlignment.Left);
    lvRegAnimals.Columns.Add("Age", -2, HorizontalAlignment.Left);
}

You can also use the other overload, Add(string). E.g:

lvRegAnimals.Columns.Add("Id");
lvRegAnimals.Columns.Add("Name");
lvRegAnimals.Columns.Add("Age");

Reference for more overloads: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.listview.columnheadercollection.aspx

Second, to add items to the ListView, you need to create instances of ListViewItem and add them to the listView's Items collection. You will need to use the string[] constructor.

var item1 = new ListViewItem(new[] {"id123", "Tom", "24"});
var item2 = new ListViewItem(new[] {person.Id, person.Name, person.Age});
lvRegAnimals.Items.Add(item1);
lvRegAnimals.Items.Add(item2);

You can also store objects in the item's Tag property.

item2.Tag = person;

And then you can extract it

var person = item2.Tag as Person;

Let me know if you have any questions and I hope this helps!

edited Jul 3, 2012 at 13:10

answered Jul 3, 2012 at 13:02

Tom

2,39021 silver badges15 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

4 Comments

3D-kreativ Over a year ago

Thanks for the help! I'm going to try this code later or tomorrow. Perhaps I can return to you if I have some questions about it.

Charlie Over a year ago

it does not have any overload constructor for implicitly typed string array ?

Tom Over a year ago

@Charlie, I am assuming you are referring to the overload constructors of ListViewItem? If you want to create a ListViewItem with SubItems from the constructor, you can either use the string[] overload or ListViewSubItem[] overload. I am using new[] instead of new string[] because C# can automatically infer the type (which is string in this case). See msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/…

Beauty Over a year ago

You should add lvRegAnimals.View = View.Details; (or set the View property in the designer). Otherwise you only see the values of the first column. ..... Additionally I had trouble with auto size (-2) of all columns. When I set a fixed size to one column, the view showed all columns.

IamBatman · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-10 22:25:42Z

43

I didn't see anyone answer this correctly. So I'm posting it here. In order to get columns to show up you need to specify the following line.

lvRegAnimals.View = View.Details;

And then add your columns after that.

lvRegAnimals.Columns.Add("Id", -2, HorizontalAlignment.Left);
lvRegAnimals.Columns.Add("Name", -2, HorizontalAlignment.Left);
lvRegAnimals.Columns.Add("Age", -2, HorizontalAlignment.Left);

Hope this helps anyone else looking for this answer in the future.

answered Dec 10, 2014 at 22:25

IamBatman

1,03313 silver badges18 bronze badges

Comments

vc 74 · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-15 12:34:44Z

6

You need to set property for the control:

listView1.View = View.Details;

edited Mar 15, 2016 at 12:34

vc 74

38.3k7 gold badges80 silver badges96 bronze badges

answered Mar 15, 2016 at 11:53

Navin Pandit

1892 silver badges8 bronze badges

3 Comments

Qasim Khan Over a year ago

what does this property do >/

Jeremy Thompson Over a year ago

what does this property do - ListViews are used in the standard "Windows Explorer", so imagine Details view in the standard folder/file browser.

Navin Pandit Over a year ago

It will show grid structure. Pls. try it for yourself.

U Zay Yar · Accepted Answer · 2016-08-31 07:32:30Z

0

            listView1.View = View.Details;
        listView1.Columns.Add("Target No.", 83, HorizontalAlignment.Center);
        listView1.Columns.Add("   Range   ", 100, HorizontalAlignment.Center);
        listView1.Columns.Add(" Azimuth ", 100, HorizontalAlignment.Center);

i also had same problem .. i drag column to left .. but now ok .. so let's say i have 283*196 size of listview ..... We declared in the column width -2 for auto width .. For fitting in the listview ,we can divide listview width into 3 parts (83,100,100) ...

edited Aug 31, 2016 at 7:32

answered Aug 29, 2016 at 22:16

U Zay Yar

111 bronze badge

1 Comment

reformed Over a year ago

Don't just post code, you need to add an explanation.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Creating columns in listView and add items

4 Answers 4

4 Comments

Comments

3 Comments

1 Comment

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

4 Answers 4

4 Comments

Comments

3 Comments

1 Comment

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related