Bending ListView to my will (a variation on a theme)

[Ommina]

OK, having beaten the menu UI elements into submission, it's time to move on to the list view. So, a couple of questions if I may!

Is the a view mode in which the the list item uses the full horizontal length of the element? The closest I have found is ViewMode.LIST, but that leaves 50% (as a guess, I didn't measure) to the right for whatever metadata. One if my lists is episode titles, which get quite long, and don't have much for interesting metadata. I'd like to use the available real-estate instead of truncating, if possible. If there is nothing built in, is there a base class I can inherit to make rolling my own easier?

Next, would it be possible to have get/set methods for the "first visible item index" added to the listview? When returning from a lower level, I like to recreate the list as it was, instead of repositioning the selected index to the top. For example, if the user selects "Drama" (fourth from the top) from a list of genres, views that dramatic list, then returns, I want to reselect 'drama', and put it fourth from the top again.

Of course, if this is already possible, a point in the right direction would be appreciated.

Thanks once again!

[mvallevand]

The ratio of list to meta views is controlled by the skin.

You set the inital list value with the second parameter
uiList.SetListObjects(itemList, Index);

You get it with uiList.GetSelectionIndex()

and you move it with uiList.SetSelectionIndex(#)

Martin

[Ommina]

Ugh, the skin. That makes perfect sense now that you mention it. . . ok, that crosses item one of the list then. Thanks!

As for uiList.GetSelectionIndex(), that is the selected index though - whereas what I need is the index of the first visible item. Going back to the example, the selected index will let me reselect 'drama', but without knowing the index of the top item on the list, I can't position things so drama is fourth from the top. At best I could put drama at the top and select it, but that's not how the user left the screen.

Or am I missing something?

[sub]

This patch adds a GetVisibleIndex(). It wont be widely available until the next release though, so be careful depending on it at this stage.

[Ommina]

This patch adds a GetVisibleIndex(). It wont be widely available until the next release though, so be careful depending on it at this stage.

Thank you very much for the GetVisibleIndex. However (he adds, sheepishly), I need a SetVisibleIndex to go along with it. Right now it just taunts me with no place to store it!

And at the speed at which I'm progressing right now, I don't think there is much chance of me releasing anything to the public in the immediate future. I've learned much over the weekend, but a long way to go!

[Ommina]

I'm feeling slight pangs of guilt for the ongoing posts / requests. Please be patient with me.

Returning to item one (the view mode). I can successfully get the full length of the element by just not having a ListSelectionMetaData in the skin file, and then increasing the size attribute of ListItemNormal and ListItemSelected. This is great until I actually DO want to use the metadata element. I do want the metadata element displayed when I display a list of series titles, but not when I display the list of episode titles for a selected series.

Further, some lists use two lines of text per ListItem instead of one, meaning I need to double the height of the item.

But now I'm back to having to set the ListItemNormal element size attributes in code. (Or, I suppose, create separate skin files for the various combinations, and switch around the supplied SkinHelper. I guess that could work as a workaround. Hm.)

Please don't hate me. . .

[sub]

Thank you very much for the GetVisibleIndex. However (he adds, sheepishly), I need a SetVisibleIndex to go along with it. Right now it just taunts me with no place to store it!

And at the speed at which I'm progressing right now, I don't think there is much chance of me releasing anything to the public in the immediate future. I've learned much over the weekend, but a long way to go!

Attached. Now has SetVisibleIndex method.

[sub]

I'm feeling slight pangs of guilt for the ongoing posts / requests. Please be patient with me.

Returning to item one (the view mode). I can successfully get the full length of the element by just not having a ListSelectionMetaData in the skin file, and then increasing the size attribute of ListItemNormal and ListItemSelected. This is great until I actually DO want to use the metadata element. I do want the metadata element displayed when I display a list of series titles, but not when I display the list of episode titles for a selected series.

Further, some lists use two lines of text per ListItem instead of one, meaning I need to double the height of the item.

But now I'm back to having to set the ListItemNormal element size attributes in code. (Or, I suppose, create separate skin files for the various combinations, and switch around the supplied SkinHelper. I guess that could work as a workaround. Hm.)

Please don't hate me. . .

You'd probably need to use multiple UiList objects, with different layouts defined in the skin files, and in GetRenderList() selectively use return whichever layout you want to use.

[mvallevand]

Attached. Now has SetVisibleIndex method.

So if I understand this SetVisibleIndex is the first item showing and SetSelectionIndex is the menu selection. To override defaults I expect will be very important to read the number of rows from the skin in case a skin changes things and also plan for changes from icon/list/wall modes.

Martin

[Ommina]

You'd probably need to use multiple UiList objects, with different layouts defined in the skin files, and in GetRenderList() selectively use return whichever layout you want to use.

First - thanks for the SetVisibleIndex().

Second - I will go with the multiple UiList objects. I actually prefer it since it lets me switch between views conveniently, although I'm mildly worried about the proliferation of xml files for the various combinations. We'll see how it goes, thank you for your help!