How can I change the ForeColor of a single sub item in a ListView control?

Question

I have a Windows Form application in which I have a ListView control. I want to change the forecolor of a single subitem. Although I have managed to change the color of a entire row or column, I haven't figured out a way to do this for a single subitem. Does anyone know of a way to do this?

Solution 1

The solution is fairly simple, and is indicated in the Remarks section of the documentation for the ListViewSubItem.ForeColor property:

If the UseItemStyleForSubItems property of the ListViewItem that owns the subitem is set to true, setting this property has no effect.

The default setting is intended to maintain a consistent appearance for all subitems owned by a single item in a ListView control so that you only have to change the properties in one place. To change the default behavior, you need to set the UseItemStyleForSubItems property of a particular ListViewItem to "False".

Once you've done that, you can adjust the ForeColor (or any other) property of an individual subitem. For example:

myListView.Items[0].UseItemStyleForSubItems = false;
myListView.Items[0].SubItems[1].ForeColor = Color.Red;

Solution 2

A way would be to set the color for all the subitems and change for the one you want.

Example code:

private void btn_Add_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {

        ListViewItem lvi = new ListViewItem();
        ListViewItem.ListViewSubItem lvsi1 = new ListViewItem.ListViewSubItem();
        ListViewItem.ListViewSubItem lvsi2 = new ListViewItem.ListViewSubItem();

        lvi.Text = tb_Main.Text;
        lvsi1.Text = tb_Sub1.Text;
        lvsi2.Text = tb_Sub2.Text;

        lvi.UseItemStyleForSubItems = false;

        lv_List.ForeColor = Color.Black;

        if (lvsi1.Text == tb_Different.Text)
        {
            lvsi1.ForeColor = Color.Red;
        }

        if (lvsi2.Text == tb_Different.Text)
        {
            lvsi2[2].ForeColor = Color.Red;
        }

        lv_List.Items.Add(lvi);
        lvi.SubItems.Add(lvsi1);
        lvi.SubItems.Add(lvsi2);

    }

Solution 3

This example will color every sub Item that has the value "Monday"

public static void colorList(ListView lsvMain)
    {           
       
        foreach (ListViewItem lvw in lsvMain.Items)
        {
            lvw.UseItemStyleForSubItems = false;

            for (int i = 0; i < lsvMain.Columns.Count; i++)
            {
                if (lvw.SubItems[i].Text.ToString() == "Monday")
                {
                    lvw.SubItems[i].BackColor = Color.Red;
                    lvw.SubItems[i].ForeColor = Color.White;
                }
                else {
                    lvw.SubItems[i].BackColor = Color.White;
                    lvw.SubItems[i].ForeColor = Color.Black; 
                }
            }
 
        }      
    }

 
 

Solution 4

Here's how I did it to show results of a multi-client SCCM push/remove. The CSV passed was (string ClientName,string PackageName,string EventType,bool Result), but I wanted to display the longest field, Package Name last, and have the Results where it'd be easier to see the color for success/fail.

private void MultiClientResultForm_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        foreach (string token in Main.ClientListResults)
        {
            string[] ResultRecord = token.Split(new string[] { "," }, StringSplitOptions.None);
            if (ResultRecord[0] != "")
            {
                ListViewItem row = new ListViewItem(ResultRecord[0]);
                row.SubItems.Add(new ListViewItem.ListViewSubItem(row, ResultRecord[2]));
                if (ResultRecord[3] == "true")
                {
                    row.SubItems.Add(new ListViewItem.ListViewSubItem(row, "Success"));
                    row.SubItems[2].ForeColor = Color.ForestGreen;
                }
                else 
                {
                    row.SubItems.Add(new ListViewItem.ListViewSubItem(row, "Fail"));
                    row.SubItems[2].ForeColor = Color.DarkRed;
                }
                row.SubItems.Add(new ListViewItem.ListViewSubItem(row, ResultRecord[3]));
                row.SubItems.Add(new ListViewItem.ListViewSubItem(row, ResultRecord[1]));
                listViewResults.Items.Add(row);
            }
        }
    }

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Comments

[R3muSGFX]

lvw.UseItemStyleForSubItems = false; <= this line of code saved my life, after writing the exact same thing you have written in the for statement. Thank you!