Listview Problems with ownerdraw mode text rendering

Question

I'm trying to implement an owner drawn ListView because the base control eats the tab character which I need to align values within a column.

Using an example from MSDN as a base I was able get close. The only problem I still have is that the periods of ellipsis used when the text doesn't fit in the column is much more closely spaced together than in the default text rendering; the the point that if the font is bold the periods run together into an underscore.

The program below demonstrates the problem. It has 4 ListViews: The two on the top are drawn using the default rendering. The two on the bottom are ownerdrawn, and the pair in the right side are bolded. For length reasons I removed everything I didn't need in order to demonstrate the problem, which is why the ownerdawn ListViews don't have column headers.

Looking at a zoomed in screenshot the periods of the ellipsis in the owner drawn ListViews are spaced one pixel apart; those in the default drawing have two pixels of spacing. When bolding widens the periods to two pixels the owner drawn ones merge together into a solid mass that looks like an underscore.

There are other minor differences in the text rendering as well; but the ellipsis is the only one that's readily apparent without zooming. These differences do however make me suspect the problem is a more general issue. Possibly GDI vs GDI+ rendering? Except I thought that could only vary at the application level. Apparently not, toggling Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault() didn't affect anything.

using System;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace WindowsFormsApplication1
{
    public class Form1 : Form
    {
        private void ListViewDrawSubItem(object sender, DrawListViewSubItemEventArgs e)
        {
            ListView listView = sender as ListView;
            using (StringFormat sf = new StringFormat())
            {
                // Draw the standard background.
                e.DrawBackground();
                sf.SetTabStops(0, new float[] {12, 12, 12, 12, 12});
                sf.FormatFlags = sf.FormatFlags | StringFormatFlags.NoWrap;
                sf.Trimming = StringTrimming.EllipsisCharacter;

                // Draw the header text.
                // passing the controls font directly causes an ArguementException);
                using (Font headerFont = new Font(listView.Font.Name, listView.Font.Size, listView.Font.Style))
                {
                    e.Graphics.DrawString(e.SubItem.Text, headerFont, Brushes.Black, e.Bounds, sf);
                }
            }
        }

        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            LoadData(listView1);
            LoadData(listView2);
            LoadData(listView3);
            LoadData(listView4);
        }

        private void LoadData(ListView listView)
        {
            listView.Columns.Add("first", 35);
            listView.Columns.Add("second", 75);

            for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++)
            {
                listView.Items.Add("test");
                listView.Items[i].SubItems.Add("test test test test");
            }
        }

        #region from Form1.Designer
        /// <summary>
        /// Required designer variable.
        /// </summary>
        private System.ComponentModel.IContainer components = null;

        /// <summary>
        /// Clean up any resources being used.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="disposing">true if managed resources should be disposed; otherwise, false.</param>
        protected override void Dispose(bool disposing)
        {
            if (disposing && (components != null))
            {
                components.Dispose();
            }
            base.Dispose(disposing);
        }

        #region Windows Form Designer generated code

        /// <summary>
        /// Required method for Designer support - do not modify
        /// the contents of this method with the code editor.
        /// </summary>
        private void InitializeComponent()
        {
            this.listView1 = new System.Windows.Forms.ListView();
            this.listView2 = new System.Windows.Forms.ListView();
            this.listView3 = new System.Windows.Forms.ListView();
            this.listView4 = new System.Windows.Forms.ListView();
            this.SuspendLayout();
            // 
            // listView1
            // 
            this.listView1.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(12, 12);
            this.listView1.Name = "listView1";
            this.listView1.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(121, 116);
            this.listView1.TabIndex = 0;
            this.listView1.UseCompatibleStateImageBehavior = false;
            this.listView1.View = System.Windows.Forms.View.Details;
            // 
            // listView2
            // 
            this.listView2.Font = new System.Drawing.Font("Microsoft Sans Serif", 8.25F, System.Drawing.FontStyle.Bold, System.Drawing.GraphicsUnit.Point, ((byte)(0)));
            this.listView2.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(151, 12);
            this.listView2.Name = "listView2";
            this.listView2.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(121, 116);
            this.listView2.TabIndex = 1;
            this.listView2.UseCompatibleStateImageBehavior = false;
            this.listView2.View = System.Windows.Forms.View.Details;
            // 
            // listView3
            // 
            this.listView3.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(12, 134);
            this.listView3.Name = "listView3";
            this.listView3.OwnerDraw = true;
            this.listView3.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(121, 116);
            this.listView3.TabIndex = 2;
            this.listView3.UseCompatibleStateImageBehavior = false;
            this.listView3.View = System.Windows.Forms.View.Details;
            this.listView3.DrawSubItem += new System.Windows.Forms.DrawListViewSubItemEventHandler(this.ListViewDrawSubItem);
            // 
            // listView4
            // 
            this.listView4.Font = new System.Drawing.Font("Microsoft Sans Serif", 8.25F, System.Drawing.FontStyle.Bold, System.Drawing.GraphicsUnit.Point, ((byte)(0)));
            this.listView4.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(151, 134);
            this.listView4.Name = "listView4";
            this.listView4.OwnerDraw = true;
            this.listView4.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(121, 116);
            this.listView4.TabIndex = 3;
            this.listView4.UseCompatibleStateImageBehavior = false;
            this.listView4.View = System.Windows.Forms.View.Details;
            this.listView4.DrawSubItem += new System.Windows.Forms.DrawListViewSubItemEventHandler(this.ListViewDrawSubItem);
            // 
            // Form1
            // 
            this.AutoScaleDimensions = new System.Drawing.SizeF(6F, 13F);
            this.AutoScaleMode = System.Windows.Forms.AutoScaleMode.Font;
            this.ClientSize = new System.Drawing.Size(284, 262);
            this.Controls.Add(this.listView4);
            this.Controls.Add(this.listView3);
            this.Controls.Add(this.listView2);
            this.Controls.Add(this.listView1);
            this.Name = "Form1";
            this.Text = "Form1";
            this.ResumeLayout(false);

        }

        #endregion

        private System.Windows.Forms.ListView listView1;
        private System.Windows.Forms.ListView listView2;
        private System.Windows.Forms.ListView listView3;
        private System.Windows.Forms.ListView listView4;
        #endregion

        [STAThread]
        static void Main()
        {
            Application.EnableVisualStyles();
            Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);
            Application.Run(new Form1());
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

I've found a contingent implementation for the draw sub item method. The main caveats I have are that the tab size is fixed (although I could drop to win32 if necessary to change it); and that the combination of flags that I need while working on my machine is reported to be mutually incompatible in MSDN.

private void ListViewDrawSubItem(object sender, DrawListViewSubItemEventArgs e)
{
    //toggle colors if the item is highlighted 
    if (e.Item.Selected && e.Item.ListView.Focused)
    {
        e.SubItem.BackColor = SystemColors.Highlight;
        e.SubItem.ForeColor = e.Item.ListView.BackColor;
    }
    else if (e.Item.Selected && !e.Item.ListView.Focused)
    {
        e.SubItem.BackColor = SystemColors.Control;
        e.SubItem.ForeColor = e.Item.ListView.ForeColor;
    }
    else
    {
        e.SubItem.BackColor = e.Item.ListView.BackColor;
        e.SubItem.ForeColor = e.Item.ListView.ForeColor;
    }

    // Draw the standard header background.
    e.DrawBackground();

    //add a 2 pixel buffer the match default behavior
    Rectangle rec = new Rectangle(e.Bounds.X + 2, e.Bounds.Y+2, e.Bounds.Width - 4, e.Bounds.Height-4);

    //TODO  Confirm combination of TextFormatFlags.EndEllipsis and TextFormatFlags.ExpandTabs works on all systems.  MSDN claims they're exclusive but on Win7-64 they work.
    TextFormatFlags flags = TextFormatFlags.Left | TextFormatFlags.EndEllipsis | TextFormatFlags.ExpandTabs | TextFormatFlags.SingleLine;

    //If a different tabstop than the default is needed, will have to p/invoke DrawTextEx from win32.
    TextRenderer.DrawText(e.Graphics, e.SubItem.Text, e.Item.ListView.Font, rec, e.SubItem.ForeColor, flags);
}