Adding button into a Listview in WinForms

Question

Is there a way to add a button control to a cell in inside a ListView in a WinForms app?

Answer 1

No and yes, ListView itself does not support such functionality, but you can create a button on top of it, so that it appears to the user as integral part of the listview. (I suppose this is what the ExtendedListView mentioned above does too).

Answer 2

No, a standard Windows Forms ListView doesn't support embedded controls. You could try to build your own custom control, or you could use something like http://www.codeproject.com/KB/list/EXListView.aspx.

Answer 3

Maybe it worths mentioning, the list view control might be designed in WPF as an usercontrol/custom control with buttons in its ListViewItems, and then use this control in the WinForms application, in an ElementHost control.

Answer 4

Here is a code of a class ListViewExtender that you can reuse. It's not a derived class of ListView, basically you just declare that a specific column is displayed as buttons instead of text. The button's text is the subItem's text.

It allows big sized list views without problems, does not use p/invoke, and also works with horizontal scrollbars (some code proposed as answers here don't or are quite slow with a great number of items). Note it requires the extended ListView to have FullRowSelect set to true and view type set to Details.

This is a sample code that uses it:

namespace WindowsFormsApplication1
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent(); // you need to add a listView named listView1 with the designer
            listView1.FullRowSelect = true;
            ListViewExtender extender = new ListViewExtender(listView1);
            // extend 2nd column
            ListViewButtonColumn buttonAction = new ListViewButtonColumn(1);
            buttonAction.Click += OnButtonActionClick;
            buttonAction.FixedWidth = true;

            extender.AddColumn(buttonAction);

            for (int i = 0; i < 10000; i++)
            {
                ListViewItem item = listView1.Items.Add("item" + i);
                item.SubItems.Add("button " + i);
            }
        }

        private void OnButtonActionClick(object sender, ListViewColumnMouseEventArgs e)
        {
            MessageBox.Show(this, @"you clicked " + e.SubItem.Text);
        }
    }
}

Here is the ListViewExtender code and associated classes:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Windows.Forms.VisualStyles;

namespace WindowsFormsApplication1
{
    public class ListViewExtender : IDisposable
    {
        private readonly Dictionary<int, ListViewColumn> _columns = new Dictionary<int, ListViewColumn>();

        public ListViewExtender(ListView listView)
        {
            if (listView == null)
                throw new ArgumentNullException("listView");

            if (listView.View != View.Details)
                throw new ArgumentException(null, "listView");

            ListView = listView;
            ListView.OwnerDraw = true;
            ListView.DrawItem += OnDrawItem;
            ListView.DrawSubItem += OnDrawSubItem;
            ListView.DrawColumnHeader += OnDrawColumnHeader;
            ListView.MouseMove += OnMouseMove;
            ListView.MouseClick += OnMouseClick;

            Font = new Font(ListView.Font.FontFamily, ListView.Font.Size - 2);
        }

        public virtual Font Font { get; private set; }
        public ListView ListView { get; private set; }

        protected virtual void OnMouseClick(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
        {
            ListViewItem item;
            ListViewItem.ListViewSubItem sub;
            ListViewColumn column = GetColumnAt(e.X, e.Y, out item, out sub);
            if (column != null)
            {
                column.MouseClick(e, item, sub);
            }
        }

        public ListViewColumn GetColumnAt(int x, int y, out ListViewItem item, out ListViewItem.ListViewSubItem subItem)
        {
            subItem = null;
            item = ListView.GetItemAt(x, y);
            if (item == null)
                return null;

            subItem = item.GetSubItemAt(x, y);
            if (subItem == null)
                return null;

            for (int i = 0; i < item.SubItems.Count; i++)
            {
                if (item.SubItems[i] == subItem)
                    return GetColumn(i);
            }
            return null;
        }

        protected virtual void OnMouseMove(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
        {
            ListViewItem item;
            ListViewItem.ListViewSubItem sub;
            ListViewColumn column = GetColumnAt(e.X, e.Y, out item, out sub);
            if (column != null)
            {
                column.Invalidate(item, sub);
                return;
            }
            if (item != null)
            {
                ListView.Invalidate(item.Bounds);
            }
        }

        protected virtual void OnDrawColumnHeader(object sender, DrawListViewColumnHeaderEventArgs e)
        {
            e.DrawDefault = true;
        }

        protected virtual void OnDrawSubItem(object sender, DrawListViewSubItemEventArgs e)
        {
            ListViewColumn column = GetColumn(e.ColumnIndex);
            if (column == null)
            {
                e.DrawDefault = true;
                return;
            }

            column.Draw(e);
        }

        protected virtual void OnDrawItem(object sender, DrawListViewItemEventArgs e)
        {
            // do nothing
        }

        public void AddColumn(ListViewColumn column)
        {
            if (column == null)
                throw new ArgumentNullException("column");

            column.Extender = this;
            _columns[column.ColumnIndex] = column;
        }

        public ListViewColumn GetColumn(int index)
        {
            ListViewColumn column;
            return _columns.TryGetValue(index, out column) ? column : null;
        }

        public IEnumerable<ListViewColumn> Columns
        {
            get
            {
                return _columns.Values;
            }
        }

        public virtual void Dispose()
        {
            if (Font != null)
            {
                Font.Dispose();
                Font = null;
            }
        }
    }

    public abstract class ListViewColumn
    {
        public event EventHandler<ListViewColumnMouseEventArgs> Click;

        protected ListViewColumn(int columnIndex)
        {
            if (columnIndex < 0)
                throw new ArgumentException(null, "columnIndex");

            ColumnIndex = columnIndex;
        }

        public virtual ListViewExtender Extender { get; protected internal set; }
        public int ColumnIndex { get; private set; }

        public virtual Font Font
        {
            get
            {
                return Extender == null ? null : Extender.Font;
            }
        }

        public ListView ListView
        {
            get
            {
                return Extender == null ? null : Extender.ListView;
            }
        }

        public abstract void Draw(DrawListViewSubItemEventArgs e);

        public virtual void MouseClick(MouseEventArgs e, ListViewItem item, ListViewItem.ListViewSubItem subItem)
        {
            if (Click != null)
            {
                Click(this, new ListViewColumnMouseEventArgs(e, item, subItem));
            }
        }

        public virtual void Invalidate(ListViewItem item, ListViewItem.ListViewSubItem subItem)
        {
            if (Extender != null)
            {
                Extender.ListView.Invalidate(subItem.Bounds);
            }
        }
    }

    public class ListViewColumnMouseEventArgs : MouseEventArgs
    {
        public ListViewColumnMouseEventArgs(MouseEventArgs e, ListViewItem item, ListViewItem.ListViewSubItem subItem)
            : base(e.Button, e.Clicks, e.X, e.Y, e.Delta)
        {
            Item = item;
            SubItem = subItem;
        }

        public ListViewItem Item { get; private set; }
        public ListViewItem.ListViewSubItem SubItem { get; private set; }
    }

    public class ListViewButtonColumn : ListViewColumn
    {
        private Rectangle _hot = Rectangle.Empty;

        public ListViewButtonColumn(int columnIndex)
            : base(columnIndex)
        {
        }

        public bool FixedWidth { get; set; }
        public bool DrawIfEmpty { get; set; }

        public override ListViewExtender Extender
        {
            get
            {
                return base.Extender;
            }
            protected internal set
            {
                base.Extender = value;
                if (FixedWidth)
                {
                    base.Extender.ListView.ColumnWidthChanging += OnColumnWidthChanging;
                }
            }
        }

        protected virtual void OnColumnWidthChanging(object sender, ColumnWidthChangingEventArgs e)
        {
            if (e.ColumnIndex == ColumnIndex)
            {
                e.Cancel = true;
                e.NewWidth = ListView.Columns[e.ColumnIndex].Width;
            }
        }

        public override void Draw(DrawListViewSubItemEventArgs e)
        {
            if (_hot != Rectangle.Empty)
            {
                if (_hot != e.Bounds)
                {
                    ListView.Invalidate(_hot);
                    _hot = Rectangle.Empty;
                }
            }

            if ((!DrawIfEmpty) && (string.IsNullOrEmpty(e.SubItem.Text)))
                return;

            Point mouse = e.Item.ListView.PointToClient(Control.MousePosition);
            if ((ListView.GetItemAt(mouse.X, mouse.Y) == e.Item) && (e.Item.GetSubItemAt(mouse.X, mouse.Y) == e.SubItem))
            {
                ButtonRenderer.DrawButton(e.Graphics, e.Bounds, e.SubItem.Text, Font, true, PushButtonState.Hot);
                _hot = e.Bounds;
            }
            else
            {
                ButtonRenderer.DrawButton(e.Graphics, e.Bounds, e.SubItem.Text, Font, false, PushButtonState.Default);
            }
        }
    }
}

Answer 5

I accidentally come across a discussion before, hope this help: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winforms/thread/ee232cc4-68c5-4ed3-9ea7-d4d999956504/

Answer 6

This is the BEST custom listview control for WinForms.
ObjectListView