How to sort ListView items when ListView is in VirtualMode?

Question

I realize i have to sort the collection where the ListView gathers the items from:
ListView listCollection = new ListView();

But this doesn't seem to work unless the ListView is added as a GUI-control to the form, that in turn makes it very slow to add items to, hence why i have to use VirtualMode on my GUI-ListView in the first place.

Anyone know how to go about this or point me in the right direction?

Answer 1

Did you try beginupdate() and endupdate()? Adding data is much faster when you use beginupdate/endupdate.(when you call beginupdate, listview doesn't draw until you call endupdate)

listView1.BeginUpdate();
for (int i = 0; i < 20000; i++)
{
listView1.Items.Add("abdc", 1);
}
listView1.EndUpdate();

Answer 2

basically, you will need to apply sort to the data pump itself.

I did a quick search on Google for listview sort virtualmode. First result was this page, where the above quote was taken from.

For example, if your datasource is a DataView, apply sorting on this instead of the ListView.

If it is just a question of performance when adding items, I would do as barism suggests; use BeginUpdate/EndUpdate instead of VirtualMode.

try {
  listView1.BeginUpdate();
  // add items
}
finally {
  listView1.EndUpdate();
}

Answer 3

If you are using virtual mode, you have to sort your underlying data source. As you may have found, ListViewItemSorter does nothing for virtual lists.

If you are using a non-virtual listview, you can also use AddRange(), which is significantly faster than a series of Add() -- In addition to using BeginUpdate/EndUpdate that has already been described.

ObjectListView (an open source wrapper around .NET WinForms ListView) already uses all these techniques to make itself fast. It is a big improvement over a normal ListView. It supports both normal mode and virtual mode listviews, and make them both much easier to use. For example, sorting is handled completely automatically.

Answer 4

For more details please visit ListView In Virtual Mode Sorting