How can I sort a WinForms DataGridView on a CheckBox column?

Question

So I had a DataGridView with autogenerated columns, some of which were checkbox columns. When I clicked on the check box column's header, it didn't sort. I researched it and it turns out that Microsoft didn't include automatic sorting for checkbox columns... Which I think is absurd--how hard is it to sort checked / not checked?

How can you get a DataGridView to sort check box columns for you?

Here's what I came up with:

Answer 1

First you need to hook into two events, the column added event and the column header click event:

AddHandler dg.ColumnAdded, AddressOf dgColumnAdded
AddHandler dg.ColumnHeaderMouseClick, AddressOf dgSortColumns

Then, enable programmatic sorting for each check box column:

Private Sub dgColumnAdded(ByVal sender As Object, _
ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.DataGridViewColumnEventArgs)
    If e.Column.GetType Is GetType(DataGridViewCheckBoxColumn) Then
        e.Column.SortMode = DataGridViewColumnSortMode.Programmatic
    End If
End Sub

Then, create a handler that will sort a checkbox column, but do nothing for columns that will handle their own sorting:

Private Sub dgSortColumns(ByVal sender As Object, _
ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.DataGridViewCellMouseEventArgs)
    Dim dg As DataGridView = sender
    Dim c As DataGridViewColumn = dg.Columns(e.ColumnIndex)
    If c.SortMode = DataGridViewColumnSortMode.Programmatic Then
        If dg.SortedColumn IsNot Nothing _
        AndAlso dg.SortedColumn.Name <> c.Name Then
            dg.Sort(c, System.ComponentModel.ListSortDirection.Ascending)
        Else
            Select Case dg.SortOrder
                Case Windows.Forms.SortOrder.None
                    dg.Sort(c, System.ComponentModel.ListSortDirection.Ascending)
                Case Windows.Forms.SortOrder.Ascending
                    dg.Sort(c, System.ComponentModel.ListSortDirection.Descending)
                Case Windows.Forms.SortOrder.Descending
                    dg.Sort(c, System.ComponentModel.ListSortDirection.Ascending)
            End Select
        End If
    End If
End Sub

And there you go! Now was it really that hard, Microsoft? ;-)