Indicating an empty ListView

When using a ListView it may be useful to inform the user that the control is empty, like Microsoft Outlook does. Doing this is pretty straightforward. Just derive your own ListView control from CListCtrl and add a WM_PAINT event handler to your derived class.

class CEmptyListCtrl : public CListCtrl
{
// Construction
public:

// Overrides
protected:
	// ClassWizard generated virtual function overrides
	//{{AFX_VIRTUAL(CEmptyListCtrl)
	//}}AFX_VIRTUAL

// Implementation
public:

// Generated message map functions
protected:
	//{{AFX_MSG(CEmptyListCtrl)
	afx_msg void OnPaint();
	//}}AFX_MSG
	DECLARE_MESSAGE_MAP()
};

Then, in OnPaint member function, implement the code necessary to handle the empty condition.

void CEmptyListCtrl::OnPaint() 
{
    Default();
    if (GetItemCount() <= 0)
    {
        COLORREF clrText = ::GetSysColor(COLOR_WINDOWTEXT);
        COLORREF clrTextBk = ::GetSysColor(COLOR_WINDOW);

        CDC* pDC = GetDC();
        // Save dc state
        int nSavedDC = pDC->SaveDC();

        CRect rc;
        GetWindowRect(&rc);
        ScreenToClient(&rc);

        CHeaderCtrl* pHC;
        pHC = GetHeaderCtrl();
        if (pHC != NULL)
        {
            CRect rcH;
            pHC->GetItemRect(0, &rcH);
            rc.top += rcH.bottom;
        }
        rc.top += 10;

        CString strText((LPCSTR)IDS_NOITEMS); // The message you want!

        pDC->SetTextColor(clrText);
        pDC->SetBkColor(clrTextBk);
        pDC->FillRect(rc, &CBrush(clrTextBk));
        pDC->SelectStockObject(ANSI_VAR_FONT);
        pDC->DrawText(strText, -1, rc, 
                      DT_CENTER | DT_WORDBREAK | DT_NOPREFIX | DT_NOCLIP);

        // Restore dc
        pDC->RestoreDC(nSavedDC);
        ReleaseDC(pDC);
    }
    // Do not call CListCtrl::OnPaint() for painting messages
}