C#: How do you edit items and subitems in a listview?

Question

If you're looking for "in-place" editing of a ListView's contents (specifically the subitems of a ListView in details view mode), you'll need to implement this yourself, or use a third-party control.

By default, the best you can achieve with a "standard" ListView is to set it's LabelEdit property to true to allow the user to edit the text of the first column of the ListView (assuming you want to allow a free-format text edit).

Some examples (including full source-code) of customized ListView's that allow "in-place" editing of sub-items are:

C# Editable ListView
In-place editing of ListView subitems

I use a hidden textbox to edit all the listview items/subitems. The only problem is that the textbox needs to disappear as soon as any event takes place outside the textbox and the listview doesn't trigger the scroll event so if you scroll the listview the textbox will still be visible. To bypass this problem I created the Scroll event with this overrided listview.

Here is my code, I constantly reuse it so it might be help for someone:

ListViewItem.ListViewSubItem SelectedLSI;
private void listView2_MouseUp(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
    ListViewHitTestInfo i = listView2.HitTest(e.X, e.Y);
    SelectedLSI = i.SubItem;
    if (SelectedLSI == null)
        return;

    int border = 0;
    switch (listView2.BorderStyle)
    {
        case BorderStyle.FixedSingle:
            border = 1;
            break;
        case BorderStyle.Fixed3D:
            border = 2;
            break;
    }

    int CellWidth = SelectedLSI.Bounds.Width;
    int CellHeight = SelectedLSI.Bounds.Height;
    int CellLeft = border + listView2.Left + i.SubItem.Bounds.Left;
    int CellTop =listView2.Top + i.SubItem.Bounds.Top;
    // First Column
    if (i.SubItem == i.Item.SubItems[0])
        CellWidth = listView2.Columns[0].Width;

    TxtEdit.Location = new Point(CellLeft, CellTop);
    TxtEdit.Size = new Size(CellWidth, CellHeight);
    TxtEdit.Visible = true;
    TxtEdit.BringToFront();
    TxtEdit.Text = i.SubItem.Text;
    TxtEdit.Select();
    TxtEdit.SelectAll();
}
private void listView2_MouseDown(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
    HideTextEditor();
}
private void listView2_Scroll(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    HideTextEditor();
}
private void TxtEdit_Leave(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    HideTextEditor();
}
private void TxtEdit_KeyUp(object sender, KeyEventArgs e)
{
    if (e.KeyCode == Keys.Enter || e.KeyCode == Keys.Return)
        HideTextEditor();
}
private void HideTextEditor()
{
    TxtEdit.Visible = false;
    if (SelectedLSI != null)
        SelectedLSI.Text = TxtEdit.Text;
    SelectedLSI = null;
    TxtEdit.Text = "";
}

Click the items in the list view. Add a button that will edit the selected items. Add the code

try
{              
    LSTDEDUCTION.SelectedItems[0].SubItems[1].Text = txtcarName.Text;
    LSTDEDUCTION.SelectedItems[0].SubItems[0].Text = txtcarBrand.Text;
    LSTDEDUCTION.SelectedItems[0].SubItems[2].Text = txtCarName.Text;
}
catch{}

Sorry, don't have enough rep, or would have commented on CraigTP's answer.

I found the solution from the 1st link - C# Editable ListView, quite easy to use. The general idea is to:

• identify the SubItem that was selected and overlay a TextBox with the SubItem's text over the SubItem
• give this TextBox focus
• change SubItem's text to that of TextBox's when TextBox loses focus

What a workaround for a seemingly simple operation :-|

private void listView1_MouseDown(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
    li = listView1.GetItemAt(e.X, e.Y);
    X = e.X;
    Y = e.Y;
}

private void listView1_MouseUp(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
    int nStart = X;
    int spos = 0;
    int epos = listView1.Columns[1].Width;
    for (int i = 0; i < listView1.Columns.Count; i++)
    {
        if (nStart > spos && nStart < epos)
        {
            subItemSelected = i;
            break;
        }

        spos = epos;
        epos += listView1.Columns[i].Width;
    }
    li.SubItems[subItemSelected].Text = "9";
}