WinForms: ListView with Multi-lined tool-tips for SubItems

If you’ve worked with ListViews in WinForms before, you might have encountered the discouraging fact that the default ListView does not support multi-lined tool-tips for SubItems. For this to work, you have to create a custom control that inherits from ListView, and make some nasty calls to P/Invoke.

Here’s how this can be achieved:

public class ListViewEx : ListView
{
    private const int WM_NOTIFY = 78;
    private const int TTN_FIRST = -520;
    private const int TTN_NEEDTEXT = (TTN_FIRST - 10);

    [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential, CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
    public struct NMHDR 
    {
        public IntPtr hwndFrom;
        public Int32 idFrom;
        public Int32 code;
    }

    [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential, CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
    public struct NMTTDISPINFO
    {
        public NMHDR hdr;
        [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPTStr)]
        public string lpszText;
        [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.ByValTStr, SizeConst = 80)]
        public string szText;
        public IntPtr hinst;
        public int uFlags;
        public IntPtr lParam;
    }

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

    protected override void OnNotifyMessage(Message m)
    {
        // Handle only WM_NOTIFY messages 
        if (m.Msg != (int)WM_NOTIFY)
        {
            base.OnNotifyMessage(m);
            return;
        }

        // Get the details of the WM_NOTIFY message, in the form of an NMHDR object
        var nmHdr = (NMHDR) Marshal.PtrToStructure(m.LParam, typeof (NMHDR));

        // We will handle only the TTN_NEEDTEXT message 
        if (nmHdr.code != TTN_NEEDTEXT)
            return;

        // Calculate the tool-tip 
        var tip = CalculateToolTip();
        if (tip == null)
            return;

        // Get the details of the notification message in the form of an NMTTDISPINFO object
        var nmttDispInfo = (NMTTDISPINFO)Marshal.PtrToStructure(m.LParam, typeof(NMTTDISPINFO));

        // Set max-width, to force multi-line tooltips (here, I've hard-coded the max-width to 320px.
        // You can calculated it based on the length of the tool-tip, screen resolution, etc.)
        SendMessage(nmttDispInfo.hdr.hwndFrom, (IntPtr)1048, IntPtr.Zero, (IntPtr)320);

        // Update tool-tip text
        nmttDispInfo.lpszText = tip;

        // Update the handle of the object that will host the tool-tip
        nmttDispInfo.hdr.hwndFrom = m.HWnd;

        // Update message information with new data
        Marshal.StructureToPtr(nmttDispInfo, m.LParam, false);
    }

    private string CalculateToolTip()
    {
        // Convert MousePosition to position inside the ListView
        var pt = PointToClient(MousePosition);
        // Perform HitTest, to allow us to find the correct ListView item/subitem
        var hitTestInfo = HitTest(pt);
        var item = hitTestInfo.Item;
        var subitem = hitTestInfo.SubItem;

        // If we didn't hit any item, no need for a tool-tip
        if (item == null)
            return null;
	
        return string.Format("Tool-tip for item: {0}\r\nSubitem: {1}", item.Index, item.SubItems.IndexOf(subitem));
    }
}

As you can see, the code is not overly complex, but not something that you could have guessed without Binging it first.

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