How To Show a ListView or TreeView Item Programmatically

• Standard, Professional, and Enterprise Editions of Microsoft Visual Basic, 32-bit only, for Windows, version 4.0

SUMMARY

Depending on the size of a ListView or TreeView control, not all ListItem or Node objects may be visible at one time. It is often desirable to control programmatically when a given ListItem or Node object is visible to a user. This article explains how to accomplish this functionality with both the ListView and TreeView controls.

MORE INFORMATION

Both the ListItem and Node objects have a method named "EnsureVisible'. To show an object all that needs to be done is to call this method from the object to be made visible. This will cause the ListView or TreeView to scroll in such a way that the specified node is visible on screen. A TreeView node that happens to be embedded beneath multiple, unexpanded levels will be made visible by expanding all necessary levels of the TreeView. If the ListItem or Node is already visible, no change will occur.

Step-By-Step Example

1. Start Visual Basic 4.0. Form1 is created by default.

2. Add a single ListView control to the form.

3. Add the following code to Form1:

   Option Explicit

      Private Sub Form_Click()
          Dim i As Integer
   
          i = CInt(InputBox$("Enter number of node:"))
          ListView1.ListItems(i).EnsureVisible
      End Sub
   
      Private Sub Form_Load()
          Dim lv As ListItem
          Dim i As Integer
   
          For i = 1 To 75
              Set lv = ListView1.ListItems.Add(, , "item " & i)
          Next i
      End Sub
   
   

4. Press the F5 key or select Start from the Run menu to start the application. Click once on the form to show the input box, and then enter the number of the ListItem object to be made visible. Press OK to execute an EnsureVisible method on the ListItem object specified by the user-entered index number.