Better ListView 2.3.0

Better ListView 2.3.0 is created to be a feature rich and smart tool which has improved grouping, better drag & drop and item reordering support, better column headers, inbuilt sorting, and more.

Major Features:

1. Hierarchical items
   • You can create tree-like structures in Better ListView; inbuilt drag & drop hierarchical reordering of items.
2. Improved grouping
   • Better grouping – customizable group headers look and behavior, collapsible, image support, context menu support, focusable, etc. Each group header can be customized individually.
3. Save/load contents with 1 line of code
   • You can save or load the contents of Better ListView in just 1 line of code, either to file or string. Both XML and binary serialization is supported.
4. Double-buffered and flicker free
   • Simply put, Better ListView is smooth. Regular listview requires multiple anti-flicker techniques, but you do not have to worry about that with Better ListView. Better ListView is optimized for 100k+ items.
5. Column header images
   • You can use images in column headers. Custom image sizes are supported.
6. Sub-item images
   • You can set images to list view sub-items. Regular list view allows you to set only one image per list view item, but Better ListView can show image for every sub-item (in every column).
7. Image-List and Image Support
   • Better ListView supports both image list, or individual image objects (System.Drawing.Image). Regular list view forces you to use ImageList object.
8. Custom list view Image size
   • You can use any image size in the list view. Better ListView can also automatically resize images with preserving aspect ratio.
9. Drag & drop with insertion mark
   • Highly customizable drag-drop for both internal and external drag-drop. You can use drop highlight or insertion mark drag drop modes.
10. List view item reordering
    • Better ListView has inbuilt item reordering and item drag & drop inserting at the position specified by user. Drag & drop preview is shown using an insertion mark.
11. Column-header reordering
    • Better ListView has inbuilt easy drag & drop column header reordering that is much easier to use than in the regular list view. Insertion mark is shown, auto-scrolling is supported.
12. Auto-scroll for column header reordering and item reordering
    • Better ListView has inbuilt auto-scrolling for column header and item reordering.
13. Column headers can be shown in all views
    • Better ListView can display column headers in all views - Details, SmallIcons, LargeIcons, List, Tile, Thumbnails. This allows users to sort items in all views. Additionally, you can also hide the column headers even in the details view.
14. Thumbnails view mode
    • Better ListView supports additional "thumbnails" view mode that allows you to view images of large sizes. The images are automatically and smoothly resized with preserved aspect ratio. You can define the maximum/minimum desired image sizes.
15. Image shadows, borders and padding
    • All images in Better ListView can have border or shadow specified. You can also specify padding that gives you space for owner drawing (eg. overlay images). This can be used in all views. Image shadows like in Windows 7 theme are supported. Windows Explorer uses very similar shadows for image thumbnails.
16. Multi-column sorting
    • You can sort by multiple columns in Better ListView. Simply shift+click a secondary (or third, etc) column to add it to the current sort. Zero code needed. Additionally, the background of the primary (first) sort column can be highlighted.
17. Inbuilt sorting and natural sorting
    • Better ListView has inbuilt list view sorting that works out of the box. You no longer need to implement your own item comparer. If custom comparer is needed, you can inherit from the Better ListView comparer to save time.
18. Richer event data
    • Many events have richer event data that allow you to do extra operations or tell you extra useful information. The richer events include: AfterItemSort, BeforeDrag, BeforeItemSort, ColumnClick (allows you to cancel sort), DragDropException, DrawBackground, DrawColumnHeaderBackground, DrawColumnHeader, DrawItemBackground, DrawItem, HitTestChanged, ItemActivate (event data tells you how the item got activated - mouse, keyboard or code), ItemDrag, ItemDrop, ItemReorder, ItemSearch, LabelEdit, RequestEmebeddedControl.
19. Checkboxes in all views
    • You can have checkboxes in LargeIcons view, SmallIcons view, List view, Thumbnails view and of course also in the Details view.
20. Three state checkboxes
    • Three state checkboxes are supported in Better ListView:
21. Hide or show checkboxes of specific ListView Items
    • You can hide checkbox for any ListViewItem. You can also show checkboxes only for specified items. All list items in Better ListView have "AllowShowCheckBox" property.
22. Powerful list view tooltips
    • You can display tooltips for nearly any part of Better ListView - tooltips for items, sub-items, checkboxes, item images, sub-item images, column headers, column header images, column header borders, and even for custom areas (regions). Owner-drawn tooltips are supported.
23. Uses current Windows theme
    • Instead of implementing custom, un-native look and feel, Better ListView always automatically fully uses the current system theme. It supports Aero as well. Better ListView always looks great and feels right to the user.
24. XML and binary serialization of everything
    • Every part of Better ListView (items, sub-items, column headers) can be both binary and XML serialized. You can easily XML serialize whole list view (or binary serialize) to save it to file or transfer items between controls. Standard ways of .NET serialization can be used (BinaryFormatter, XmlSerializer).
25. Owner drawing
    • Better ListView allows you to draw over the client area, items and column headers. Contrary to .NET ListView, owner drawing is fully operational even when the system uses Aero theme. You can draw separately to background and foreground parts of Better ListView without worrying about proper drawing order. Owner drawing events provide rich data, including exact item state and areas of every item part.
26. Multi-line items
    • Better ListView supports multi-line items. Items with very long text can be displayed on multiple lines.
27. Context menu for column headers, list items, and empty area
    • Better ListView supports 3 types of context menus: Column header context menu, list view items context menu, and empty area context menu (when right-clicking white space).
28. Powerful hit-test
    • The hit test returns very detailed information. It tells you not only the location (Client Area, Sub-Item, Sub-Item Text, Sub-Item Image, Checkbox, Column Header Image, and many more), but it also tells you the state of the item, and part of the item (left or right).
29. Customizable search-by-typing
    • Better ListView has excellent customization functionality for find-as-you-type item searching. The search modes include: Prefix (searchs from beginning of items), Substring (search any part of item text), Prefix + Substring, or Disabled. Additionally, search options include: Case sensitive, search first word only, play sound when item not found, prefer prefixes, search whole words. You can also restrict the search to only certain columns. You can also call "FindItemsWithText" function to find items from code.
30. Display text when the list view is empty
    • You can display a gray text centered in the list view if it's empty to hint or educate users. This will make your software more user friendly.
31. Embed controls for item editing
    • Inbuilt in-line editing support includes label edit, combobox edit, date picker edit. You can also embed any custom control for in-line editing.
32. ListView item text formatting
    • Supports both text trimming and auto-ellipsis for text that's too long. You can choose from: TrimCharacter, TrimWord, EllipsisCharacter, EllipsisWord, EllipsisPath (for file paths). Column header text can be broken into multiple lines.
33. Focusable ListView sub-items
    • Focus sub-items in Better ListView easily with keyboard. Just use the arrow keys. (This is impossible with the regular .NET ListView)
34. Automatic list view layout
    • Better ListView can auto-size item images, item text, column header images, column header text.
35. Custom list view item size
    • You can set custom sizes for item text area and item images. You can also set custom size for column header text area and column header images. (Text area size is different from font size, text area size basically defines the size of the list view item.) This enables you to make tiny/huge column headers or list view items.

Enhancements: 

• Added BetterListViewItem.TextWrapping (BetterListViewSubItem.TextWrapping) property 
• Added vertical text alignment for columns, items, sub-items and groups 
• Added BetterListViewDrawItemEventArgs.DrawEnabled and BetterListViewDrawItemEventArgs.DrawFocused properties 
• Added comparation operators to BetterListViewAddress 
• When items are selected from user code, new selections with Shift or Control+Shift keys are made from the item with lowest index (address) value 
• Sub-item text aligned on top in Details view 
• Revised and extended documentation 
• Fixed item text not displaying properly on items in Thumbnails view 
• Fixed item images not refreshing when another ImageList is set with same image sizes 
• Fixed problem when modifying tree hierarchy in runtime 
• Breaking Changes: 
• • BetterListViewColumnHeader.Align renamed to BetterListViewColumnHeader.AlignHorizontal 
  • BetterListViewGroup.HeaderAlignment renamed to BetterListViewGroup.HeaderAlignmentHorizontal 
  • BetterListViewItem.Align renamed to BetterListViewItem.AlignHorizontal 
  • BetterListViewSubItem.Align renamed to BetterListViewSubItem.AlignHorizontal 
  • TextAlignment changed to TextAlignmentHorizontal