VB.NET Listview Multiple Column Filter

Question

My goal is to develop a search using multiple textboxes. I have five columns (ArticleNo, Description, PartNum, Manufacturer and Cost) each of which will have a textbox over them.

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I keep track of the original list items using:

Private originalListItems As New List(Of ListViewItem)

This is filled with all the items (over 6000).

Then I will have five "text changed" events occuring based on the five textboxes created (tbSearchArticleNo, tbSearchDescription, tbSearchPartNum ... etc)

Private Sub tbSearchArticleNo_TextChanged(sender As Object, e As System.EventArgs) Handles tbSearchArticleNo.TextChanged
    If tbSearchDesc.Text <> "" Or tbPartNum.Text <> "" Or tbManufacturer.Text <> "" Or tbCost.Text <> "" Then
        SearchCurrentList(lwArticles, tbSearchArticleNo.Text, 0, False)
    Else
        SearchListView(lwArticles, tbSearchArticleNo.Text, 0, False)
    End If
End Sub

Here is my method SearchCurrentList:

Private Sub SearchCurrentList(ByVal listview As ListView, ByVal search As String, ByVal colIndex As Integer, ByVal upperCase As Boolean)
    If upperCase Then
        search = search.ToUpper()
    End If

    listview.BeginUpdate()

    'Clear listview
    lwArticles.Items.Clear()

    'Other textbox has information in it, concatenate both results
    For Each item In currentListItems
        Dim itemToUpper = item.SubItems.Item(colIndex).Text
        If upperCase Then
            itemToUpper = item.SubItems.Item(colIndex).Text.ToUpper()
        End If
        If itemToUpper.Contains(search) Then
            lwArticles.Items.Add(item)
        End If
    Next

    'Reupdate the current list of items
    currentListItems.Clear()
    For Each item In lwArticles.Items
        currentListItems.Add(item)
    Next

    listview.EndUpdate()
End Sub

And here is my method SearchListView:

Private Sub SearchListView(ByVal listview As ListView, ByVal search As String, ByVal colIndex As Integer, ByVal upperCase As Boolean)
    'Upper case parameter determines if you're searching a string, if so, it is better to compare everything by uppercase
    If upperCase Then
        search = search.ToUpper()
    End If

    listview.BeginUpdate()

    If search.Trim().Length = 0 Then
        'Clear listview
        listview.Items.Clear()

        'Clear currentListItems
        currentListItems.Clear()

        'If nothing is in the textbox make all items appear
        For Each item In originalListItems
            listview.Items.Add(item)
        Next

    Else
        'Clear listview
        listview.Items.Clear()

        'Clear currentListItems
        currentListItems.Clear()

        'Go through each item in the original list and only add the ones which contain the search text
        For Each item In originalListItems
            Dim currItem = item.SubItems.Item(colIndex).Text
            If upperCase Then
                currItem = currItem.ToUpper()
            End If
            If currItem.Contains(search) Then
                currentListItems.Add(item)
                listview.Items.Add(item)
            End If
        Next
    End If

    listview.EndUpdate()
End Sub

Here's an example of my search:

tbSearchArticleNo.Text = "33"

This will match every articleNo that contains "33" in the string. Now I want to add another filter:

tbSearchDescription.Text = "Mixer"

This should match everything that contains 33 in the article number as well as "mixer" in the description. And so on and so fourth.

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The actual filters are working correctly - my only problem is whenever I erase something, such as "Mixer" (while still having "33" in the articleNo) it doesn't return the results of the articleNo containing "33" ... Instead it doesn't change the results of my search. There might be a better way of searching through this?

Answer 1

Instead of only filtering one column at a time and passing the current list in to further filter the results, how about having a single function that filters based on all the specified values at once:

1. Call a single "Filter" function from the TextChanged (or Validated) event of every filter Textbox.
2. In the Filter function, start by re-copying originalListItems into lwArticles.
3. Apply filters for each Textbox that has a value in sequence. (Call SearchCurrentList for each textbox, passing in lwArticles. Each step filters down the list further from the previous, but only doing work for textboxes that have values.)

Answer 2

Its hard to follow what you are trying to do, but i suggest if you are dealing with 6k items in a listview and want to filter them, perhaps you should use a databound gridview instead.

Then you can perform the search on the datasource, very simply:

Public Class Form1
Private _articleList As List(Of Article)

Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
    'populate _itemList somehow, for example from a database. Manually here for example purposes:
    _articleList = New List(Of Article) From {
        New Article("jenny cooks fish", "cooking"),
        New Article("a better sales team", "sales")}
    DataGridView1.DataSource = _articleList
End Sub


Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
    Dim filtered As List(Of Article) = _articleList.Where(Function(x) x.Title.Contains("cook") AndAlso x.Category = "cooking").ToList
    DataGridView1.DataSource = filtered

End Sub
End Class

Public Class Article
Property Title As String
Property Category As String
'etc etc

Public Sub New(ByVal title As String, ByVal category As String)
    _Title = title
    _Category = category
End Sub
End Class

Answer 3

A somewhat different way of handling this is to use LINQ. The following function could be used to return an object that enumerates the provided collection including only those items that fit the filter. You could use this enumerator to re-populate your list. If you used originalListItems each time you called GetFilter, you would always have every item included for consideration in the latest filter.

Function GetFilter(source As IEnumerable(Of ListViewItem), articleNo As String, description As String,
                  partNum As String, prop4 As String, prop5 As String) As IQueryable(Of ListViewItem)
  GetFilter = source.AsQueryable

  Dim articleFilter As Expressions.Expression(Of Func(Of ListViewItem, Boolean)) = _
     Function(i As ListViewItem) i.SubItems(0).Text.IndexOf(articleNo, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase) >= 0
  Dim descFilter As Expressions.Expression(Of Func(Of ListViewItem, Boolean)) = _
     Function(i As ListViewItem) i.SubItems(1).Text.IndexOf(description, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase) >= 0
  Dim partFilter As Expressions.Expression(Of Func(Of ListViewItem, Boolean)) = _
     Function(i As ListViewItem) i.SubItems(2).Text.IndexOf(partNum, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase) >= 0
  Dim prop4Filter As Expressions.Expression(Of Func(Of ListViewItem, Boolean)) = _
     Function(i As ListViewItem) i.SubItems(3).Text.IndexOf(prop4, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase) >= 0
  Dim prop5Filter As Expressions.Expression(Of Func(Of ListViewItem, Boolean)) = _
     Function(i As ListViewItem) i.SubItems(4).Text.IndexOf(prop5, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase) >= 0

  If Not String.IsNullOrEmpty(articleNo) Then GetFilter = Queryable.Where(GetFilter, articleFilter)
  If Not String.IsNullOrEmpty(description) Then GetFilter = Queryable.Where(GetFilter, descFilter)
  If Not String.IsNullOrEmpty(partNum) Then GetFilter = Queryable.Where(GetFilter, partFilter)
  If Not String.IsNullOrEmpty(prop4) Then GetFilter = Queryable.Where(GetFilter, prop4Filter)
  If Not String.IsNullOrEmpty(prop5) Then GetFilter = Queryable.Where(GetFilter, prop5Filter)
End Function

Better yet, with a little more thought, you could probably make articleNo and the other parameters into variables with a larger scope, and adjust the function to embed IsNullOrEmpty checking into the Queryable expression, and then you wouldn't need to even re-generate the filter when a field value changes. You could just set the variable to the new textbox value and re-evaluate the already-generated filter expression, which will consider the new values in the variables thus yielding newly filtered results.

Here's how I would expect it to be used:

lwArticles.Items.Clear()
For Each i In GetFilter(originalListItems, tbSearchArticleNo.Text, tbSearchDesc.Text, tbPartNum.Text, tbManufacturer.Text, tbCost.Text)
   lwArticles.Items.Add(i)
Next

Answer 4

I managed to get it to work. For those wondering how, it's not that elegant - but it works!

I set tags on the GUI of the four textboxes (i omitted the cost textbox after further talk with the engineers). So..

tbSearchArticleNo.Tag = 1

tbSearchDesc.Tag = 2

tbPartNum.Tag = 4

tbManufacturer.Tag = 8

This isn't elegant because you will exponentially grow as you add textboxes. (be careful) Depending on the fields entered, a total is calculated which will then be treated by my FilterOriginalList(total)

Private Sub tbSearchArticleNo_TextChanged(sender As Object, e As System.EventArgs) Handles tbSearchArticleNo.TextChanged, tbSearchDesc.TextChanged, tbPartNum.TextChanged, tbManufacturer.TextChanged
    Dim tag1 As Integer = 0
    Dim tag2 As Integer = 0
    Dim tag3 As Integer = 0
    Dim tag4 As Integer = 0

    If tbSearchArticleNo.Text <> "" Then
        tag1 = tbSearchArticleNo.Tag
    End If

    If tbSearchDesc.Text <> "" Then
        tag2 = tbSearchDesc.Tag
    End If

    If tbPartNum.Text <> "" Then
        tag3 = tbPartNum.Tag
    End If

    If tbManufacturer.Text <> "" Then
        tag4 = tbManufacturer.Tag
    End If

    FilterOriginalList(tag1 + tag2 + tag3 + tag4)
End Sub

Here is my method:

Private Sub FilterOriginalList(ByRef tagCounter As Integer)
    Dim field1 As String = tbSearchArticleNo.Text
    Dim field2 As String = tbSearchDesc.Text.ToUpper()
    Dim field4 As String = tbPartNum.Text.ToUpper()
    Dim field8 As String = tbManufacturer.Text.ToUpper()

    lwArticles.BeginUpdate()

    'Clear listview
    lwArticles.Items.Clear()

    For Each item In originalListItems
        Dim currField1 = item.SubItems.Item(0).Text
        Dim currField2 = item.SubItems.Item(1).Text.ToUpper
        Dim currField4 = item.SubItems.Item(2).Text.ToUpper
        Dim currField8 = item.SubItems.Item(3).Text.ToUpper

        Select Case (tagCounter)
            Case 0
                lwArticles.Items.Add(item)
            Case 1
                If currField1.Contains(field1) Then
                    lwArticles.Items.Add(item)
                End If
            Case 2
                If currField2.Contains(field2) Then
                    lwArticles.Items.Add(item)
                End If
            Case 3
                If currField1.Contains(field1) And currField2.Contains(field2) Then
                    lwArticles.Items.Add(item)
                End If
            Case 4
                If currField4.Contains(field4) Then
                    lwArticles.Items.Add(item)
                End If
            Case 5
                If currField1.Contains(field1) And currField4.Contains(field4) Then
                    lwArticles.Items.Add(item)
                End If
            Case 6
                If currField2.Contains(field2) And currField4.Contains(field4) Then
                    lwArticles.Items.Add(item)
                End If
            Case 7
                If currField1.Contains(field1) And currField2.Contains(field2) And currField4.Contains(field4) Then
                    lwArticles.Items.Add(item)
                End If
            Case 8
                If currField8.Contains(field8) Then
                    lwArticles.Items.Add(item)
                End If
            Case 9
                If currField1.Contains(field1) And currField8.Contains(field8) Then
                    lwArticles.Items.Add(item)
                End If
            Case 10
                If currField2.Contains(field2) And currField8.Contains(field8) Then
                    lwArticles.Items.Add(item)
                End If
            Case 11
                If currField1.Contains(field1) And currField2.Contains(field2) And currField8.Contains(field8) Then
                    lwArticles.Items.Add(item)
                End If
            Case 12
                If currField4.Contains(field4) And currField8.Contains(field8) Then
                    lwArticles.Items.Add(item)
                End If
            Case 13
                If currField1.Contains(field1) And currField4.Contains(field4) And currField8.Contains(field8) Then
                    lwArticles.Items.Add(item)
                End If
            Case 14
                If currField2.Contains(field2) And currField4.Contains(field4) And currField8.Contains(field8) Then
                    lwArticles.Items.Add(item)
                End If
            Case 15
                If currField1.Contains(field1) And currField2.Contains(field2) And currField4.Contains(field4) And currField8.Contains(field8) Then
                    lwArticles.Items.Add(item)
                End If
        End Select
    Next
    lwArticles.EndUpdate()
End Sub

Thanks for everyone who helped. Here's the solution I found - there's probably something much easier that I will be looking into in the futur!