Disabling automatic listview find

I've just finished writing a routine to search for a row in my listview based on the character that the user types over the given column. I identify the column the mouse is over (MouseMove) and trap the character typed in (KeyPress) and then in a loop I compare the letter typed with the fist character of the subitem (corresponding to the column the mouse is over) in all listitems. If a match is found, the listitem is selected and I ensure it's visible. My problem is that the built-in feature that searches the Listview1.ListItems(x).Text for the typed character, does its own search after mine. The result is that it then positions itself to the first occurence of the character in Listview1.ListItems(x).Text, immediately after the occurence in the other column that I was searching on.
Listview columns and data:

Component ID_ CAS Number
29___________ 100-06-1
244___________ 112-30-1
250___________ 112-53-8
446___________ 120-14-9
188___________ 121-33-5

If the user types 1 over the CAS Number column it positions to Component ID 188. I've tested this with various numbers typed in and it consistently behaves this way. Typing letters in for others columns doesn't have this problem, presumably since the auto search cannot find an alphabetic value in the Component ID column.

It seems that the only way to prevent this is to disable that automatic feature. Anyone know how? Any other ideas?

See my answer in this recent thread.

Yes, I looked at the other thread but it didn't help. I've tried the FindItem method, but I couldn't get it to work with Subitems, only with the Item.Text. My objective is have the user type in a letter over any column in the listview (approx. 10 columns), and have it search in that specific item/subitem for a value that starts with that letter, select the item and position to the item.

Here's my code for FindItem. strLVW_DBColumnName is the listview column header name. I've tried this with KeyDown and KeyPress, both without success.

VB Code:

Private Sub lvwComponents_KeyDown(KeyCode As Integer, Shift As Integer)
 
   Dim itmX As ListItem, x As Integer, y As Integer, strSearchString As String
 
   ' Exit if nothing to search.
   If strLVW_DBColumnName = vbNullString _
   Or lvwComponents.ListItems.Count = 0 Then Exit Sub
  
   ' If mouse over a column, search for the letter pressed.
   With lvwComponents
      If strLVW_DBColumnName = "COMPONENT_ID" Then
         Set itmX = .FindItem(Chr$(KeyAscii), lvwText, , lvwPartial)
      Else
         Set itmX = .FindItem(Chr$(KeyAscii), lvwSubItem, _
            .ColumnHeaders(strLVW_DBColumnName).Index)
      End If
      If Not itmX Is Nothing Then
         itmX.Selected = True
         itmX.EnsureVisible
      End If
   End With
End Sub

Since FindItem didn't work, I coded a loop....

VB Code:

Private Sub lvwComponents_KeyDown(KeyCode As Integer, Shift As Integer)
 
   Dim itmX As ListItem, x As Integer, y As Integer, strSearchString As String
 
   ' Exit if nothing to search.
   If strLVW_DBColumnName = vbNullString _
   Or lvwComponents.ListItems.Count = 0 Then Exit Sub
  
   ' If mouse over a column, search for the letter pressed.
   With lvwComponents
      For x = 1 To .ListItems.Count
         ' Use text or subitem as search string depending on column that mouse is over.
         If strLVW_DBColumnName = "COMPONENT_ID" Then
            strSearchString = Left$(.ListItems(x).Text, 1)
         Else
            y = .ColumnHeaders(strLVW_DBColumnName).Index - 1
            strSearchString = Left$(.ListItems(x).SubItems(y), 1)
         End If
         ' Search text/subitem.
         If UCase(strSearchString) = UCase(Chr$(KeyAscii)) Then
            .ListItems(x).Selected = True
            .ListItems(x).EnsureVisible
            Exit Sub
         End If
      Next x
   End With  
End Sub

The loop above seems to work fine on alphanumeric data. However, one of my subitems (CAS_NUMBER column) is numeric and with that column it seems to find the correct match in the subitem column and then jumps to the first match in the ListItems(x).Text directly following the match that it should have found. Note: COMPONENT_ID column (ListItems(x).Text) is numeric. This is why I'm assuming that the tricky automatic search feature is overriding my search loop when I'm searching on numeric data. My example again.

Code:

---

Component ID          CAS Number
29                    100-06-1
244                  112-30-1
250                  112-53-8
446                  120-14-9
188                  121-33-5
232                  121-33-5

---

If the user types 1 over the CAS Number column it positions to Component ID 188. I've tested this with various numbers typed in and it consistently behaves this way. Typing letters in for others columns doesn't have this problem, presumably since the auto search cannot find an alphabetic value in the Component ID column.

One problem you have is that there is no "KeyAscii" parameter in the KeyDown event. I'm looking at the rest of the coide now.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by MartinLiss
One problem you have is that there is no "KeyAscii" parameter in the KeyDown event. I'm looking at the rest of the coide now.

---

there is a keycode though

Sorry I didn't clean up the code a bit more. I switched from KeyPress to KeyDown, so I included the following lines.

Dim KeyAscii As Integer
KeyAscii = KeyCode

Is your column Key = COMPONENT_ID? If not then that's your problem. I got it to work and I'll post a demo in a couple of minutes.

If you mean the Item and SubItem key, I don't fill them in, so I guess they don't have any value.

I can't do a demo because I've found out that lvwPartial doesn't apply to subitems, only the main item so I guess you'll need to code a loop.

If I use the loop, then I need to suppress the automatic search on the Item column, COMPONENT_ID. Do you know if this is possible?

VB Code:

Private Sub ListView1_KeyPress(KeyAscii As Integer)
    KeyAscii = 0
End Sub

It works! You've just made some ladies in Germany (my users) very happy.