Search code examples
.netwpflistviewsortinglistcollectionview

Is there a way to sort a listview without having to recreate all its elements?

I have a listView displaying a bunch of graphs. I can sort this listview using different criteria. Unfortunately when I perform sort, the operation took more time than expected and I realized that after the sort was triggered all the graphs were being recreated.

My datasource is an observable collection and the view consists of a chart control and a few labels. I perform the sort on the view by using the view sort description, so the sort should be performed on the view and not on the data source, right?

lstView.Items.SortDescriptions.Clear();
lstView.Items.SortDescriptions.Add(new SortDescription(_field, _lstViewDirection));

I have been searching around and it seems that the sort triggers a refresh which removes the UI elements from the control and recreates them ... but this seems unnecessary given I am only ordering the positions of the UI elements.

Is there a way to avoid this refresh behaviour and only reorder the UI elements positions?

Solution

  • You need to use Virtualization so only the elements displayed in the UI are redrawn instead of the entire collection.

    http://www.codeproject.com/KB/WPF/WpfDataVirtualization.aspx