c# flickering Listview on update

Question

I have a list view that is periodically updated (every 60 seconds). It was anoying to me that i would get a flicker every time it up dated. The method being used was to clear all the items and then recreate them. I decided to instead of clearing the items I would just write directly to the cell with the new text. Is this a better approach or does anyone have a better solution.

Answer 1

The ListView control has a flicker issue. The problem appears to be that the control's Update overload is improperly implemented such that it acts like a Refresh. An Update should cause the control to redraw only its invalid regions whereas a Refresh redraws the control’s entire client area. So if you were to change, say, the background color of one item in the list then only that particular item should need to be repainted. Unfortunately, the ListView control seems to be of a different opinion and wants to repaint its entire surface whenever you mess with a single item… even if the item is not currently being displayed. So, anyways, you can easily suppress the flicker by rolling your own as follows:

class ListViewNF : System.Windows.Forms.ListView
{
    public ListViewNF()
    {
        //Activate double buffering
        this.SetStyle(ControlStyles.OptimizedDoubleBuffer | ControlStyles.AllPaintingInWmPaint, true);

        //Enable the OnNotifyMessage event so we get a chance to filter out 
        // Windows messages before they get to the form's WndProc
        this.SetStyle(ControlStyles.EnableNotifyMessage, true);
    }

    protected override void OnNotifyMessage(Message m)
    {
        //Filter out the WM_ERASEBKGND message
        if(m.Msg != 0x14)
        {
            base.OnNotifyMessage(m);
        }
    }
}

From: Geekswithblogs.net

Answer 2

In addition to the other replies, many controls have a [Begin|End]Update() method that you can use to reduce flickering when editing the contents - for example:

    listView.BeginUpdate();
    try {
        // listView.Items... (lots of editing)
    } finally {
        listView.EndUpdate();
    }

Answer 3

Here is my quick fix for a C# implementation that does not require subclassing the list views etc.

Uses reflection to set the DoubleBuffered Property to true in the forms constructor.

    lvMessages
        .GetType()
        .GetProperty("DoubleBuffered", System.Reflection.BindingFlags.Instance | System.Reflection.BindingFlags.NonPublic)
        .SetValue(lvMessages, true, null);

Update for 2021: I got pinged on this old post with a comment and I would write this code differently now. Below is an extension method that will add a new method to a ListView to be able to set the double buffered property to true/false as required. This will then extend all list views and make it easier to call as reqired.

/// <summary>
/// Extension methods for List Views
/// </summary>
public static class ListViewExtensions
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Sets the double buffered property of a list view to the specified value
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="listView">The List view</param>
    /// <param name="doubleBuffered">Double Buffered or not</param>
    public static void SetDoubleBuffered(this System.Windows.Forms.ListView listView, bool doubleBuffered = true)
    {
        listView
            .GetType()
            .GetProperty("DoubleBuffered", System.Reflection.BindingFlags.Instance | System.Reflection.BindingFlags.NonPublic)
            .SetValue(listView, doubleBuffered, null);
    }
}

Answer 4

If this can help, the following component solved my ListView flickering issues with .NET 3.5

[ToolboxItem(true)]
[ToolboxBitmap(typeof(ListView))]
public class ListViewDoubleBuffered : ListView
{
    public ListViewDoubleBuffered()
    {
        this.DoubleBuffered = true;
    }
}

I use it in conjonction with .BeginUpdate() and .EndUpdate() methods where I do ListView.Items manipulation.

I don't understand why this property is a protected one...even in the .NET 4.5 (maybe a security issue)

Answer 5

Excellent question and Stormenent's answer was spot on. Here's a C++ port of his code for anyone else who might be tackling C++/CLI implementations.

#pragma once

#include "Windows.h" // For WM_ERASEBKGND

using namespace System;
using namespace System::Windows::Forms;
using namespace System::Data;
using namespace System::Drawing;

public ref class FlickerFreeListView : public ListView
{
public:
    FlickerFreeListView()
    {
        //Activate double buffering
        SetStyle(ControlStyles::OptimizedDoubleBuffer | ControlStyles::AllPaintingInWmPaint, true);

        //Enable the OnNotifyMessage event so we get a chance to filter out 
        // Windows messages before they get to the form's WndProc
        SetStyle(ControlStyles::EnableNotifyMessage, true);
    }

protected:
    virtual  void OnNotifyMessage(Message m) override
    {
        //Filter out the WM_ERASEBKGND message
        if(m.Msg != WM_ERASEBKGND)
        {
            ListView::OnNotifyMessage(m);
        }
    }

};

Answer 6

Yes, make it double buffered. It will reduce the flicker ;) http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.listview.doublebuffered.aspx

Answer 7

You can use the following extension class to set the DoubleBuffered property to true:

using System.Reflection;

public static class ListViewExtensions
{
    public static void SetDoubleBuffered(this ListView listView, bool value)
    {
        listView.GetType()
            .GetProperty("DoubleBuffered", BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.NonPublic)
            .SetValue(listView, value);
    }
}

Answer 8

The simplest Solution would probably be using

       listView.Items.AddRange(listViewItems.ToArray());

instead of

       foreach (ListViewItem listViewItem in listViewItems)
       {
           listView.Items.Add(listViewItem);
       }

This works way better.

Answer 9

Simple solution

yourlistview.BeginUpdate()

//Do your update of adding and removing item from the list

yourlistview.EndUpdate()

Answer 10

I know this is an extremely old question and answer. However, this is the top result when searching for "C++/cli listview flicker" - despite the fact that this isn't even talking about C++. So here's the C++ version of this:

I put this in the header file for my main form, you can choose to put it elsewhere...

static void DoubleBuffer(Control^ control, bool enable) {
    System::Reflection::PropertyInfo^ info = control->GetType()->
        GetProperty("DoubleBuffered", System::Reflection::BindingFlags::Instance 
            | System::Reflection::BindingFlags::NonPublic);
    info->SetValue(control, enable, nullptr);
}

If you happen to land here looking for a similar answer for managed C++, that works for me. :)

Answer 11

This worked best for me.
Since you are editing the cell directly, the best solution in your case would be to simply refresh/reload that particular cell/row instead of the entire table.
You could use the RedrawItems(...) method that basically repaints only the specified range of items/rows of the listview.

public void RedrawItems(int startIndex, int endIndex, bool invalidateOnly);

Reference

This totally got rid of the full listview flicker for me.
Only the relevant item/record flickers while getting updated.

Cheers!

Answer 12

If someone would still look an answer for this, I used a timer for a slight delay and it solved the problem nicely. I wanted to highlight (change colour) for the entire row on mouse move event, but I think it would work for item replacement etc. For me listView.BeginUpdate() and listView.EndUpdate() didn't work, DoubleBuffered property also didn't work, I have googled a lot and nothing worked.

private int currentViewItemIndex;
private int lastViewItemIndex;

    private void listView_MouseMove(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
    {            
        ListViewItem lvi = listView.GetItemAt(e.X, e.Y);

        if (lvi != null && lastViewItemIndex == -1)
        {
            listView.Items[lvi.Index].BackColor = Color.Green;
            lastViewItemIndex = lvi.Index;
        }

        if (lvi != null && lastViewItemIndex != -1)
        {
            currentViewItemIndex = lvi.Index;
            listViewTimer.Start(); 
        } 
    }

    private void listViewTimer_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        listView.BeginUpdate();
        listView.Items[lastViewItemIndex].BackColor = Colour.Transparent;
        listView.Items[currentViewItemIndex].BackColor = Colour.Green;
        listView.EndUpdate();
        lastViewItemIndex = currentViewItemIndex;
        listViewTimer.Stop();
    }

Answer 13

In Winrt Windows phone 8.1 you can set the following code to fix this issue.

<ListView.ItemContainerTransitions>
    <TransitionCollection/>      
</ListView.ItemContainerTransitions>

Answer 14

Try setting the double buffered property in true.

Also you could use:

this.SuspendLayout();

//update control

this.ResumeLayout(False);

this.PerformLayout();

Answer 15

For what it's worth, in my case, I simply had to add a call to

Application.EnableVisualStyles()

before running the application, like this:

    private static void Main()
    {
        Application.EnableVisualStyles();
        Application.Run(new Form1());
    }

Otherwise, double buffering is not enough. Maybe it was a very old project and new ones have that setting by default...