Is it possible to make a TListView search by the caption of a different column in Delphi?

Question

Hi,

When you set the Caption of a TListItem it seems to always set the Text for the first column in the row. When you start typing in the ListView it will search & select the closest match based on the caption of the first column.

I have a situation where I need the caption of the first row to be empty, but still need the search functionality to work as normal (in this case the data I would be searching for may be in the 2nd/3rd column).

Is this possible without using any 3rd party controls?

Answer 1

If it's bound to a dataset, then you can do your own search and then move the dataset cursor to the row that you want. Just off the top of my head, because I just did one of those.

Update: Use the OnCompare handler, and do your own comparision on whatever criteria you want. i.e. you get to decide whether item1 < item2 or not.

Here's a nice writeup: http://www.latiumsoftware.com/en/delphi/00011.php

Answer 2

Depending on why you want the caption/ first column to be blank, you could move the text you want to search for into the caption, and then have a blank sub-item. Then swap the column order in code like so

//Move the 1st sub-item left one column
ListView1.Columns[1].Index := 0;

This would look almost the same, with the exception that if you don't have RowSelect set to true the highlighted caption will be in the wrong column. This would allow you to search as required and use the FindCaption method in code.

procedure TForm1.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
var
  I: Integer;
  li : TListItem;
begin
    //Add data to the list view for demo
    for I := 0 to 10 do
    begin
           li := ListView1.Items.Add;    
           li.Caption := intToStr(Random(10000));
           li.SubItems.Add('');
           li.SubItems.Add('Col2');

           //addimages so you can see which column is which
           li.SubItemImages[0] := 0;
           li.ImageIndex := -1;
    end;

    //move column 2 left one, this is the important bit
    ListView1.Columns[1].Index := 0;
end;