Does anyone know of a way of hiding a column in an asp.net listview?

Question

I know you can put <% if %> statements in the ItemTemplate to hide controls but the column is still there. You cannot put <% %> statements into the LayoutTemplate which is where the column headings are declared, hence the problem. Does anyone know of a better way?

Answer 1

Here's another solution that I just did, seeing that I understand what you want to do:

Here's your ASCX / ASPX

    <asp:ListView ID="ListView1" runat="server" DataSourceID="MyDataSource" ItemPlaceholderID="itemPlaceHolder" OnDataBound="ListView1_DataBound">
        <LayoutTemplate>
            <table border="1">
                <tr>
                    <td>Name</td>
                    <td>Age</td>
                    <td runat="server" id="tdIsSuperCool">IsSuperCool</td>
                </tr>
                <asp:PlaceHolder ID="itemPlaceHolder" runat="server" />
            </table>
        </LayoutTemplate>
        <ItemTemplate>
            <tr>
                <td><%# Eval("Name") %></td>
                <td><%# Eval("Age") %></td>
                <td runat="server" id="myCol" visible='<%# (bool)Eval("IsSuperCool") %>'>true</td>
            </tr>
        </ItemTemplate>
    </asp:ListView>
    <asp:ObjectDataSource 
        ID="MyDataSource" 
        runat="server" 
        DataObjectTypeName="BusinessLogicLayer.Thing" 
        SelectMethod="SelectThings"
        TypeName="BusinessLogicLayer.MyObjectDataSource" />

Here's the code behind

/// <summary>
/// Handles the DataBound event of the ListView1 control.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="sender">The source of the event.</param>
/// <param name="e">The <see cref="System.EventArgs"/> instance containing the event data.</param>
protected void ListView1_DataBound(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    ListView1.FindControl("tdIsSuperCool").Visible = false;
}

Do whatever you want in the databound. Because the column is now runat server, and you're handling the DataBound of the control, when you do ListView1.FindControl("tdIsSuperCool") you're in the Layout template so that works like a champ.

Put whatever business logic that you want to control the visibility of the td and you're good.