ListView List

What differs from ListBox: Extended selection by default

ListView derives from ListBox, and its items are wrapped in ListViewItem containers. Its View is null by default, which shows a plain list without column headers.

One difference from ListBox is the selection: the default SelectionMode of a ListView is Extended, while a ListBox’s is Single. Set SelectionMode="Single" if only one item may be selected. How the selection modes, SelectedIndex (including invalid indexes), and IsSelected behave is measured on the ListBox page.

GridView columns: width, order, and sorting

With a GridView as the View, the items become rows with column headers. Each column in Columns shows a value with DisplayMemberBinding or a CellTemplate. Setting both threw no exception, and DisplayMemberBinding was used: the first row showed AliceBlue, not the template’s text.

A column Width of Auto (NaN) sized the Name column to the rows shown at the start, 84.89 wide, and it did not grow later: scrolling LightGoldenrodYellow, the longest name, into view and inserting a longer name at the top both left it at 84.89. Give columns a fixed width when the longest value is not in the first rows. A bound width follows its source: with the Value column’s width bound to a slider, moving the slider to 300 made the column 300 wide.

AllowsColumnReorder decides whether the user can drag a header to move its column; the default is True. A real drag of the Name header past the Value header changed the order to Value, Name with True and left Name, Value with False. The order is that of the Columns collection itself.

A GridView does not sort. A real click on the Name header left the first item as AliceBlue, and no sort description was added. Sort in code: handle the header click and add a SortDescription to the items’ view.

Scrolling, and what Disabled cuts off

With 1,000 data items set through ItemsSource and a GridView, the rows were virtualized: in a ListView 150 high, 8 item containers were created.

In a list 300 wide and 100 high with one column 500 wide, Disabled scroll bars left no horizontal scrolling, so the right part of the column could not be reached, but the rows still scrolled vertically: ScrollToBottom and the Down key to the last row both moved the vertical offset to 2 rows (the horizontal offset stayed at 0). With Auto, the offsets went to 227 DIPs horizontally and 3 rows vertically. Leave the horizontal bar on Auto when columns are wide.

Defaults, GridView columns, reordering, sorting, and scrolling. Measured on .NET 10 / Windows 11.

Trying it in the demo app

The ListView page of the demo app has sections for SelectionMode, View with the columns and AllowsColumnReorder, a column’s Width, SelectedIndex and SelectedItem, IsSelected, and the scroll bars. The SelectionMode combo box starts at Single, its first value, and SelectedItems.Count is shown under the list. The View section sets a GridView with a Name column and a Value column over the list of brushes, with AllowsColumnReorder checked; the Width section binds the Value column’s width to a slider starting at 150; the SelectedIndex section starts at SelectedIndex="0" (Item A) and binds a text box to the index two-way; the IsSelected section binds the first item’s IsSelected to a check box; and the scroll bar section has one column 500 wide, with its combo boxes starting at Disabled. The “Show Code” link under each section displays its XAML. The following XAML is the View section (ListViewUsageControl.xaml), with the styles and the surrounding GroupBoxes left out and the namespace declarations added. markupextensions is the prefix for the demo app’s own markup extensions:

<StackPanel xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
            xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
            xmlns:markupextensions="clr-namespace:WPFStandardControlDemoApp.Common.MarkupExtensions">
  <CheckBox x:Name="AllowsColumnReorderCheckBox" Content="AllowsColumnReorder" IsChecked="True" />

  <ListView x:Name="ViewColumnsListView"
            Height="150"
            ItemsSource="{markupextensions:StaticBindingSource TargetType=Brushes}">
    <ListView.View>
      <GridView AllowsColumnReorder="{Binding IsChecked, ElementName=AllowsColumnReorderCheckBox}">
        <GridViewColumn Width="auto" DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding Name}" Header="Name" />
        <GridViewColumn Width="auto" DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding Value}" Header="Value" />
      </GridView>
    </ListView.View>
  </ListView>
</StackPanel>

Related controls and articles

• ListBox — ListView’s base class, with the selection measured in detail.
• DataGrid — a table with editing and sorting.

Source code and how it was measured

Every behavior on this page was measured by running it on .NET 10 / Windows 11, using ListViewDemoScene in this site’s screenshot tool, with the demo app’s list of brushes (Name and Value of each). Headers were dragged and clicked with the real mouse. Widths are the values on the measuring machine.

View ListView source code on GitHub →