Question

I’m using a ListView control in the details view with VirtualMode set to true and I’m finding that whenever a new item is added the horozontal scrollbar is set to the leftmost position. This doesn’t happen if the ListView is not in virtual mode. Update: this also doesn’t happen if you don’t enable visual styles.

You can see this by creating a simple ListView with 2 columns in details mode and adding something like the following:

Timer timer = new Timer();

public Form1()
{
    this.InitializeComponent();

    this.listView1.VirtualMode = true;
    this.listView1.RetrieveVirtualItem += new RetrieveVirtualItemEventHandler(listView1_RetrieveVirtualItem);
    this.listView1.VirtualListSize = 10;

    timer.Interval = 250;
    timer.Tick += new EventHandler(t_Tick);
    timer.Start();
}

void listView1_RetrieveVirtualItem(object sender, RetrieveVirtualItemEventArgs e)
{
    e.Item = new ListViewItem(new string[] {"Test", ""});
}

void t_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    this.listView1.VirtualListSize += 1;
}

Scroll the list view to the right to see this effect.

How can I stop this from happening? I have an application where items are continuously added to the list view and so this behaviour is very distracting.

Answer 1

This appears to be a known bug: ListView in virtual mode scrolls incorrectly

The last comment from Microsoft on that Connect report is:

This is an issue with the underlying Win32 control. We will not be able to fix this, the OS team will need to address this.

Of course that was back in 2005, so maybe it’s fixed in Win 8?

---

In the meantime, the workaround appears to be:

Create new class that inherits ListView and write the following code:

private static FieldInfo _internalVirtualListSizeField;

static FlickerFreeListView()
{
    _internalVirtualListSizeField = typeof(ListView).GetField("virtualListSize", System.Reflection.BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance);
}

[DllImport("user32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
private static extern IntPtr SendMessage(HandleRef hWnd, int msg, int wParam, int lParam);

private IntPtr SendMessage(int msg, int wparam, int lparam)
{
    return SendMessage(new HandleRef(this, this.Handle), msg, wparam, lparam);
}

public void SetVirtualListSize(int size)
{
    if (size < 0)
    {
        throw new ArgumentException("ListViewVirtualListSizeInvalidArgument");
    }

    _internalVirtualListSizeField.SetValue(this, size);
    if ((base.IsHandleCreated && this.VirtualMode) && !base.DesignMode)
    {
        SendMessage(0x102f, size, 2);
    }
}

Now update your code to use SetVirtualListSize method instead of the original VirtualListSize property.

0x102f = LVM_SETITEMCOUNT
2 = LVSICF_NOSCROLL

reference:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb761188%28VS.85%29.aspx