How to add borders to WPF ListView in code - wpf

Question

I have created a ListView with a GridView in code.
ListView gridList = new ListView();
GridView gridListView = new GridView ();
gridList.View = gridListView;
Now, I define a GridViewColumn, set the header, width and bindingPath. All good and the data shows up.
GridViewColumn listColumn = new GridViewColumn();
listColumn.Header = "Some Header";
listColumn.Width = 100.0;
listColumn.DisplayMemeberBinding = new Binding("Name");
gridListView.Columns.Add(listColumn);
But there are no borders/gridlines shown on display of this ListView. How can I add borders through code?
Someone described my exact problem here but no good solution mentioned
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/fa4fa8e0-81fe-487a-8763-590062d29c06/wpf-listview-gridview-row-border?forum=wpf

Answer 1

The logic in WPF programming is totally different from what you've done in winforms. Everything related to UI should always be set up using XAML (as much as possible). The WPF library itself has many parts desgined mainly for use in XAML although there is always an equivalent codebehind. However that's when using codebehind may be awkward and non-intuitive (as well as straight-forward).
I understand that you want something like the ListView Grid in Winforms. In WPF that can be achieved easily if you use XAML code. Even in code behind, you can always build a Style or Template from XAML string (with the help of XamlReader). This approach is good for complex scenario but in this case I have another approach (don't use the XAML parser at all). This trick does render the grid which is good enough (and at best it can do for the trade-off of simplicity):
//we need an instance of Style to set to ListView.ItemContainerStyle
var style = new Style(typeof(ListViewItem));
//set the bottom border thickness to 1
var setter = new Setter(Control.BorderThickness, new Thickness(0,0,0,1));
style.Setters.Add(setter);
//set the border brush
var borderBrush = new LinearGradientBrush { StartPoint = new Point(0,0),
EndPoint = new Point(1,0)};
var gradStop = new GradientStop(Colors.Transparent, 0.001);
borderBrush.GradientStops.Add(gradStop);
gradStop = new GradientStop(Colors.Green, 0.001);
borderBrush.GradientStops.Add(gradStop);
gradStop = new GradientStop(Colors.Green, 0.999);
borderBrush.GradientStops.Add(gradStop);
gradStop = new GradientStop(Colors.Transparent, 0.999);
borderBrush.GradientStops.Add(gradStop);
setter = new Setter(Control.BorderBrush, borderBrush);
style.Setters.Add(setter);
yourListView.ItemContainerStyle = style;
Note that the default inner Border of each ListViewItem has a hard-coded CornerRadius of about 2, so by setting just the bottom BorderBrush to a solid brush such as Brushes.Green will show a little upwards curly line at the 2 ends of the bottom border. You can try it yourself. If this result is acceptable, the code can be shorter and simpler (because you don't have to define the GradientBrush to cut-off the 2 curly ends) like this:
setter = new Setter(Control.BorderBrush, Brushes.Green);
style.Setters.Add(setter);
If the behavior is still not what you want. You should try the approach I mentioned about using XamlReader to parse a XAML string and get an instance of whatever you want in codebehind. (you can search it yourself, it's easy to have some result).

Answer 2

I suggest you see this link, it contains a dynamic GridView created in code-behind that can be useful for your specific case. For the code sample that you provided, you didn't add ShowGridLines property.