Question

I have a list box that displays a set of filenames that reference text files. I think it is aesthetically unappealing to display full paths, so I used Path.GetFileName to cut off the directory part.

But now when the user selects a particular filename to open, I’ve lost the paths. The files could be located anywhere on the local computer (for now).

How can I use the list box so that I can display nice filenames, but also have reference to the actual file?

EDIT: I like the idea of having a custom wrapper class for each list box item.

Answer 1

What’s I’ve done in the past is create a wrapper class for the objects I want to display in the ListBox. In this class override ToString to the string you want to display in the ListBox.

When you need to get details of a selected item, cast it to the wrapper class and pull the data you need.

Here’s an ugly example:

class FileListBoxItem
{
    public string FileFullname { get; set; }
    public override string ToString() {
        return Path.GetFileName(FileFullname);
    }
}

Fill your ListBox with FileListBoxItems:

listBox1.Items.Add(new FileListBoxItem { FileFullname = @"c:\TestFolder\file1.txt" })

Get back the full name of a selected file like this:

var fileFullname = ((FileListBoxItem)listBox1.SelectedItem).FileFullname;

---

Edit
@user1154664 raises a good point in a comment to your original question: how would a user differentiate two ListBox items if the displayed file names are the same?

Here are two options:

Also display each FileListBoxItem’s parent directory

To do this change the ToString override to this:

public override string ToString() {
    var di = new DirectoryInfo(FileFullname);
    return string.Format(@"...\{0}\{1}", di.Parent.Name, di.Name);
} 

Display a FileListBoxItem’s full path in a tooltip

To do this drop a ToolTip component on your form and add a MouseMove event handler for your ListBox to retrieve the FileFullname property value of the FileLIstBoxItem the user is hovering the mouse over.

private void listBox1_MouseMove(object sender, MouseEventArgs e) {
    string caption = "";

    int index = listBox1.IndexFromPoint(e.Location);
    if ((index >= 0) && (index < listBox1.Items.Count)) {
        caption = ((FileListBoxItem)listBox1.Items[index]).FileFullname;
    }
    toolTip1.SetToolTip(listBox1, caption);
}

Of course you can use this second option with the first.

Source for the ToolTip in a ListBox (the accepted answer, code reformatted to a flavor I prefer).