How to detect a mouse click on any column of a List View control in Visual C++

MORE INFORMATION

Step-by-step procedure

The List View control will send a NM_CLICK notification code to its parent window whenever the user has clicked the left mouse button within its client area. Below are the necessary steps to intercept this notification code in the control itself (instead of the parent window) and to highlight the first column of the row that is being clicked:

1. Open Solution Explorer. On the Project menu, click Add Class.
2. In the Add Class dialog box, double-click the MFC Class in the Templates pane.
3. In the MFC Class Wizard, type a class name of CMyListCtrl and a base class of CListCtrl, and then click Finish to add the new class to your project.
4. Add a message event handler for the NM_CLICK message to the CMyListCtrl class:
   1. In the Class View window, click to select CMyListCtrl, open the Properties window, and then click Messages.
   2. In the Properties window, click to select the =NM_CLICK entry.
   3. Click to select the drop-down list that results, and then add the OnNMClick handler to your class. The following code is generated in the CMyListCtrl class:

      // In the .h file of CMyListCtrl:
      class CMyListCtrl : public CListCtrl
      {
          ...
          protected:
          DECLARE_MESSAGE_MAP()
          public:
          afx_msg void OnClickOnNMClick(NMHDR* pNMHDR, LRESULT* pResult);
   
      };
   
      // In the .cpp file of CMyListCtrl:
   
      BEGIN_MESSAGE_MAP(CMyListCtrl, CListCtrl)
          ...
          ON_NOTIFY_REFLECT(NM_CLICK, OnClickOnNMClick)
      END_MESSAGE_MAP()
   
      void CMyListCtrl::OnClickOnNMClick(NMHDR* pNMHDR, LRESULT* pResult)
      {
          // TODO: Add your control notification handler code here
   
          *pResult = 0;
      }
   					

5. Modify the CMyListCtrl::OnClick() function to perform the tasks in the sample code below.

Sample code

   void CMyListCtrl::OnClickOnNMClick(NMHDR* pNMHDR, LRESULT* pResult)
   {
      // Get the current mouse location and convert it to client
      // coordinates.
      DWORD pos = GetMessagePos();
      CPoint pt(LOWORD(pos), HIWORD(pos));
      ScreenToClient(&pt);

      // Get indexes of the first and last visible items in listview
      // control.
      int index = GetTopIndex();
      int last_visible_index = index + GetCountPerPage();
      if (last_visible_index > GetItemCount())
          last_visible_index = GetItemCount();

      // Loop until number visible items has been reached.
      while (index <= last_visible_index)
      {
         // Get the bounding rectangle of an item. If the mouse
          // location is within the bounding rectangle of the item,
          // you know you have found the item that was being clicked.
          CRect r;
          GetItemRect(index, &r, LVIR_BOUNDS);
          if (r.PtInRect(pt))
          {
              UINT flag = LVIS_SELECTED | LVIS_FOCUSED;
              SetItemState(index, flag, flag);
              break;
          }

          // Get the next item in listview control.
          index++;
      }

      *pResult = 0;
   }