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winformslistviewheadertooltip

How do I show a tooltip for the header area of a Winforms ListView control?

I can set the ToolTip property of a ListView control, but that's for the whole control.

Can I just have a tooltip for the Details View header area?

Solution

  • ObjectListView (an open source wrapper around .NET WinForms ListView) supports tooltips on headers.

    The functionality isn't very easy to replicate in a standard ListView, but I'll outline the steps necessary:

    1. get the header control of the ListView (using the LVM_GETHEADER message)
    2. create a tooltip that is just for the header. The standard .NET ToolTip class cannot do this, since it only works on full Controls, and you will only have a handle)
    3. listen for TTN_GETDISPINFO messages on your tooltip and fill in the NMTTDISPINFO structure appropriately.

    It really much easier to use an ObjectListView, which makes a ListView much easier to use and much more functional. This snapshot shows a header tooltip that was dynamically generated in response to a HeaderToolTip event:

    alt text