Edit

Share via

How to Add List-View Items and Subitems

  • Article

This topic demonstrates how to add items and subitems to a list-view control.

What you need to know

Technologies

Prerequisites

  • C/C++
  • Windows User Interface Programming

Instructions

To add an item to a list-view control, an application must first define an LVITEM structure and then send an LVM_INSERTITEM message, specifying the address of the LVITEM structure. If an application uses report view, subitem text must be provided.

The following C++ code example fills an LVITEM structure and adds the list-view items by using the LVM_INSERTITEM message or the corresponding macro ListView_InsertItem. Because the application saves its own text, it specifies the LPSTR_TEXTCALLBACK value for the pszText member of the LVITEM structure. Specifying the LPSTR_TEXTCALLBACK value causes the control to send an LVN_GETDISPINFO notification code to its owner window whenever it needs to display an item.

// InsertListViewItems: Inserts items into a list view. 
// hWndListView:        Handle to the list-view control.
// cItems:              Number of items to insert.
// Returns TRUE if successful, and FALSE otherwise.
BOOL InsertListViewItems(HWND hWndListView, int cItems)
{
    LVITEM lvI;

    // Initialize LVITEM members that are common to all items.
    lvI.pszText   = LPSTR_TEXTCALLBACK; // Sends an LVN_GETDISPINFO message.
    lvI.mask      = LVIF_TEXT | LVIF_IMAGE |LVIF_STATE;
    lvI.stateMask = 0;
    lvI.iSubItem  = 0;
    lvI.state     = 0;

    // Initialize LVITEM members that are different for each item.
    for (int index = 0; index < cItems; index++)
    {
        lvI.iItem  = index;
        lvI.iImage = index;
    
        // Insert items into the list.
        if (ListView_InsertItem(hWndListView, &lvI) == -1)
            return FALSE;
    }

    return TRUE;
}

// HandleWM_NOTIFY - Handles the LVN_GETDISPINFO notification code that is 
//         sent in a WM_NOTIFY to the list view parent window. The function 
//        provides display strings for list view items and subitems.
//
// lParam - The LPARAM parameter passed with the WM_NOTIFY message.
// rgPetInfo - A global array of structures, defined as follows:
//         struct PETINFO
//        {
//            TCHAR szKind[10];
//            TCHAR szBreed[50];
//            TCHAR szPrice[20];
//        };
//
//        PETINFO rgPetInfo[ ] = 
//        {
//            {TEXT("Dog"),  TEXT("Poodle"),     TEXT("$300.00")},
//            {TEXT("Cat"),  TEXT("Siamese"),    TEXT("$100.00")},
//            {TEXT("Fish"), TEXT("Angel Fish"), TEXT("$10.00")},
//            {TEXT("Bird"), TEXT("Parakeet"),   TEXT("$5.00")},
//            {TEXT("Toad"), TEXT("Woodhouse"),  TEXT("$0.25")},
//        };
//
void HandleWM_NOTIFY(LPARAM lParam)
{
    NMLVDISPINFO* plvdi;

    switch (((LPNMHDR) lParam)->code)
    {
        case LVN_GETDISPINFO:

            plvdi = (NMLVDISPINFO*)lParam;

            switch (plvdi->item.iSubItem)
            {
                case 0:
                    plvdi->item.pszText = rgPetInfo[plvdi->item.iItem].szKind;
                    break;
                      
                case 1:
                    plvdi->item.pszText = rgPetInfo[plvdi->item.iItem].szBreed;
                    break;
                
                case 2:
                    plvdi->item.pszText = rgPetInfo[plvdi->item.iItem].szPrice;
                    break;
                
                default:
                    break;
            }

        break;

    }
    // NOTE: In addition to setting pszText to point to the item text, you could 
    // copy the item text into pszText using StringCchCopy. For example:
    //
    // StringCchCopy(plvdi->item.pszText, 
    //                         plvdi->item.cchTextMax, 
    //                         rgPetInfo[plvdi->item.iItem].szKind);

    return;
}

List-View Control Reference

About List-View Controls

Using List-View Controls