Are there anyway to determine coordinates of Top-Left corner of Column in ListView?

Question

I can't find any function that can help me with this and I don't want to write crazy function that will HitTest every pixel of ListView area, to find out coords of needed Column (if it ever possible to get Column from HitTest).

Thanks to Yair Nevet comment, I wrote next function to determine Left position of needed Column:

private int GetLeftOfColumn(ColumnHeader column, ListView lv)
{
    if (!lv.Columns.Contains(column))
        return -1;

    int calculated_left = 0;

    for (int i = 0; i < lv.Columns.Count; i++)
        if (lv.Columns[i] == column)
            return calculated_left;
        else
            calculated_left += lv.Columns[i].Width + 1;

    return calculated_left;
}

Answer 1

Because the USER32 messages was mentioned above but no implementation was given, and I just came across this when I needed to solve it, here's a working version using the messaging to native code.

Here's some required items wrapped in a private NativeMethods class:

private static class NativeMethods {
    private const int LVM_FIRST = 0x1000;
    private const int LVM_GETHEADER = LVM_FIRST + 31;

    private const int HDM_FIRST = 0x1200;
    private const int HDM_GETITEMRECT = HDM_FIRST + 7;

    private const int SB_HORZ = 0;
    private const int SB_VERT = 1;

    private const int SIF_POS = 0x0004;

    [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
    public class SCROLLINFO {
        public int cbSize = Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(NativeMethods.SCROLLINFO));
        public int fMask;
        public int nMin;
        public int nMax;
        public int nPage;
        public int nPos;
        public int nTrackPos;
    }

    [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
    public struct RECT {
        public int Left;
        public int Top;
        public int Right;
        public int Bottom;
    }

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

    [DllImport("user32.dll", EntryPoint = "SendMessage", CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
    public static extern IntPtr SendMessageGETRECT(IntPtr hWnd, int Msg, int wParam, ref RECT lParam);

    [DllImport("user32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto, ExactSpelling = true)]
    public static extern bool GetScrollInfo(IntPtr hWnd, int fnBar, SCROLLINFO scrollInfo);

    /// <summary>
    /// Return the handle to the header control on the given list
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="list">The listview whose header control is to be returned</param>
    /// <returns>The handle to the header control</returns>
    public static IntPtr GetHeaderControl(ListView list) {
        return SendMessage(list.Handle, LVM_GETHEADER, 0, 0);
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Get the scroll position of the given scroll bar
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="lv"></param>
    /// <param name="horizontalBar"></param>
    /// <returns></returns>
    public static int GetScrollPosition(ListView lv, bool horizontalBar) {
        int fnBar = (horizontalBar ? SB_HORZ : SB_VERT);

        SCROLLINFO scrollInfo = new SCROLLINFO();
        scrollInfo.fMask = SIF_POS;
        if (GetScrollInfo(lv.Handle, fnBar, scrollInfo)) {
            return scrollInfo.nPos;
        }
        else {
            return -1;
        }
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Return the screen rectangle of the column header item specified
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="handle">Handle to the header control to check</param>
    /// <param name="index">Index of the column to get</param>
    /// <returns></returns>
    public static Rectangle GetHeaderItemRect(IntPtr handle, int index) {
        RECT rc = new RECT();
        IntPtr result = NativeMethods.SendMessageGETRECT(handle, HDM_GETITEMRECT, index, ref rc);
        if (result != IntPtr.Zero) {
            return new Rectangle(rc.Left, rc.Top, rc.Right - rc.Left, rc.Bottom - rc.Top);
        }
        return Rectangle.Empty;
    }
}

Here's the code that gets your location:

/// <summary>
/// Get's the location coordinate of the specified column header's top/left corner
/// </summary>
/// <param name="oListView">ListView control to get the column header location from</param>
/// <param name="iColumn">Column to find the location for</param>
/// <param name="bAsScreenCoordinate">Whether the location returned is for the screen or the local ListView control</param>
/// <returns>Location of column header or <see cref="Point.Empty"/> if it could not be retrieved</returns>
public static Point GetColumnHeaderTopLeft(this ListView oListView, int iColumn, bool bAsScreenCoordinate) {
    if (oListView == null) {
        throw new ArgumentNullException();
    }
    if ((iColumn < 0) || (iColumn >= oListView.Columns.Count)) {
        throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException();
    }

    // Get the header control's rectangle
    IntPtr hndHeader = NativeMethods.GetHeaderControl(oListView);
    Rectangle oHeaderRect = NativeMethods.GetHeaderItemRect(hndHeader, iColumn);
    if (oHeaderRect.IsEmpty) {
        return Point.Empty;
    }

    // Get the scroll bar position to adjust the left
    int iScroll = NativeMethods.GetScrollPosition(oListView, true);

    // Create the local coordinate
    Point oLocation = new Point(oHeaderRect.Left - iScroll, oHeaderRect.Top);

    // Return the local or screen coordinate
    return bAsScreenCoordinate ? oListView.PointToScreen(oLocation) : oLocation;
}