Question

I am trying to bind a binding list to a datagrid, with autogeneratecolumns set to true. However no columns are showing and I am wondering why.

Code snippet:

datagridResults.AutoGenerateColumns = true;
List<MailItem> mailItems = new List<MailItem>();

//readPst() returns a List<MailItem> populated with MailItems from the specified PST.
mailItems = readPst(txtBoxPST.Text, "Archive Folders");
BindingList<MailItem> bl = new BindingList<MailItem>(mailItems);

datagridResults.DataSource = bl;
datagridResults.Refresh();

The datagrid ends up being blank. I am sure that the BindingList contains the MailItems, if I changed it from binding from the BindingList to a Foreach MailItem m in bl… manually adding the rows it works fine. So my best guess is that the AutoGenerateColumns doesn’t work with the MailItem class? I am not sure why though, or the best way to work around it.

The MailItem class is the Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.MailItem class.

Answer 1

just add ToList() and don’t need to refresh the DataGridView

datagridResults.DataSource = bl.Tolist();

Update

This is how to read the MailItems in OutLook

public static void DisplayInbox(ApplicationClass o)
{
  // Get items in my inbox. 
  NameSpace outlookNS = o.GetNamespace("MAPI");
  MAPIFolder inboxFolder 
    = outlookNS.GetDefaultFolder(OlDefaultFolders.olFolderInbox);
  // Print out some basic info. 
  Console.WriteLine("You have {0} e-mails.", 
    inboxFolder.Items.Count);
  Console.WriteLine();
  foreach(object obj in inboxFolder.Items)
  {
    MailItem item = obj as MailItem;
    if(item != null)
    {
      Console.WriteLine("-> Received: {0}", 
        item.ReceivedTime.ToString());
      Console.WriteLine("-> Sender: {0}", item.SenderName);
      Console.WriteLine("-> Subject: {0}", item.Subject);
      Console.WriteLine();
    }
  }
}

Source: An Introduction to Programming Outlook 2003 Using C#