New subject: [PATCH v12 1/5] comctl32: Implement Tile view style

26 Feb 2026

      The Tile View in common controls offers a compact and pretty nice way to show some additional context within the list view, without resorting to the full reports mode.

It's used a lot in explorer like programs where things like the disk size and file type are shown.

But, it's been sitting unimplemented in wine for a long time.

I've just spent a few days implementing this by:
- Building a small test program in windows to get a feel for how it works
- Hacking just enough to get something displaying
- Writing a test suite to try and understand the ownership model, getting, and setting, and the
  various messages passed by windows.
- Fixing up the implementation.
- Adjusting my program to use I_COLUMNCALLBACK in windows and testing that.
- Fixing my implementation to match the behaviour observed.

Full disclosure, I wrote this implementation within the ReactOS build system then copied back the diff as I had that compiling already on my Windows box, and my Mac is an M1 so doesn't play very nicely with Wine. So while I built this code on my Mac in Wine, I can't actually run it there. I'll install a Linux virtual machine at some point and do some testing there too.

All bugs and misunderstandings are my own; I used clean room techniques (read MSDN, write a test program, write tests, compare results, iterate).

Interesting things:
- I initially wrote layout code for tiling mode as well, but a few rounds of playing with my test program and various layouts and settings (things like `LVS_ALIGNTOP`, `LVS_AUTOARRANGE` and `LVS_ALIGNLEFT`) for both tile mode and icon mode convinced me that they same layout logic (or close enough to).
- I noticed some differences in Wine's Icon mode layout as compared to Windows 10.
  - I didn't fix these, one thing at a time.
- I noticed and fixed a bug in SetView, where `UpdateItemSize` was called _after_ `Arrange`; that doesn't work.
- The Text colours are really odd, if set to black the sub items show up gray, but any other colour and they're the same as the main.
- Layout is tricky, in windows it looks like the first item (file name for example) can flow to 2 lines, and subitems are restricted to 1
  - But this is really subtle, using GetItemMetrics kind of assumes there's no 'interference' from other items.
  - If we're on subitem 2, I don't want to have to fetch 0 and 1 to render their sizes before calculating my own, it seems like an `O(N^2)` situation off the bat.
  - I used a sidechannel from DrawItems, I'm open to other ideas here.

- I haven't tested message passing, many of the test failures for listview at the moment look like sequencing errors for messages. I didn't look into it.
- The auto mode on Windows 10 looks quite sophisticated, in that it examines many (all) items before deciding the best size. I haven't done anything interesting for auto size mode.
- Not really interesting, but the tabs vs spaces situation in this file is a mess.

Next Steps
==========

- ~~Test with image lists loaded as well~~
- Test properly in Linux
- Hope for feedback here (particularly for messages)
- Think about auto sizing.

If Merged
=========

Now that I have a pretty good grasp of how this component works and lays things out, once this is merged I'll see if I can do Groups as well.

Pictures:
========
![image](/uploads/ce9ae8f09686182d84b399b8a8b0e2a4/image.png){width=400}
![image](/uploads/8c9d1eb4c362a07c74291b49989c4fd7/image.png){width=300}

Test Program
===========

```C
#include <windows.h>
#include <commctrl.h>

HINSTANCE g_hInst;
HWND g_hLV;

static void AddItems(HWND hLV)
{
    static UINT puColumns[2] = {1,2};
    LVITEMW it = {0};
    it.mask = LVIF_TEXT | LVIF_COLUMNS;
    it.cColumns = I_COLUMNSCALLBACK;

    it.iItem = 0; it.iSubItem = 0; it.pszText = LPSTR_TEXTCALLBACK;
    ListView_InsertItem(hLV, &it);
    ListView_SetItemText(hLV, 0, 1, L"Static");
    ListView_SetItemText(hLV, 0, 2, L"1 KB");
    ListView_SetItemText(hLV, 0, 3, L"2026-02-23 12:00");

    it.cColumns = 2;
    it.puColumns = puColumns;

    it.iItem = 1; it.iSubItem = 0; it.pszText = L"bravo.txt";
    ListView_InsertItem(hLV, &it);
    ListView_SetItemText(hLV, 1, 1, L"Text");
    ListView_SetItemText(hLV, 1, 2, L"12 KB");
    ListView_SetItemText(hLV, 1, 3, L"2026-02-22 09:30");
}

static void AddColumns(HWND hLV)
{
    LVCOLUMNW col = {0};
    col.mask = LVCF_TEXT | LVCF_WIDTH;
    col.cx = 160; col.pszText = L"Name";     ListView_InsertColumn(hLV, 0, &col);
    col.cx = 140; col.pszText = L"Type";     ListView_InsertColumn(hLV, 1, &col);
    col.cx = 100; col.pszText = L"Size";     ListView_InsertColumn(hLV, 2, &col);
    col.cx = 180; col.pszText = L"Modified"; ListView_InsertColumn(hLV, 3, &col);
}

static void EnableTileView(HWND hLV)
{
    SIZE size = { 100, 70 };
    LVTILEVIEWINFO tileViewInfo = {0};

    tileViewInfo.cbSize   = sizeof(tileViewInfo);
    tileViewInfo.dwFlags  = LVTVIF_FIXEDSIZE;
    tileViewInfo.dwMask   = LVTVIM_COLUMNS | LVTVIM_TILESIZE;
    tileViewInfo.cLines   = 3;
    tileViewInfo.sizeTile = size;

    ListView_SetTileViewInfo(hLV, &tileViewInfo);
    ListView_SetView(hLV, LV_VIEW_TILE);
}

static void OnGetDispInfo(NMLVDISPINFO* pnmv)
{

 if (pnmv->item.iItem < 0) {
  return;
 }
 if (pnmv->item.mask & LVIF_TEXT) {
   // Demonstrates that Windows is passing us a size 20 buffer to write to.
   pnmv->item.pszText = pnmv->item.cColumns == 20 ? L"Yes" : L"No";
 }
 if (pnmv->item.mask & LVIF_IMAGE) {
   pnmv->item.iImage = -1;
 }
 if (pnmv->item.mask & LVIF_STATE) {
   pnmv->item.state = 0;
 }
 if (pnmv->item.mask & LVIF_COLUMNS) {
   pnmv->item.cColumns = 2;
   pnmv->item.puColumns[0] = 1;
   pnmv->item.puColumns[1] = 2;
 }
}

static LRESULT OnNotify(WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam)
{
 switch (((LPNMHDR)lParam)->code) {
  case LVN_GETDISPINFO:
   OnGetDispInfo((NMLVDISPINFO*) lParam);
   break;
  }
 return TRUE;
}

static LRESULT CALLBACK WndProc(HWND hWnd, UINT msg, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam)
{
    switch (msg)
    {
    case WM_CREATE:
    {
        g_hLV = CreateWindowExW(WS_EX_CLIENTEDGE, WC_LISTVIEWW, L"",
            WS_CHILD | WS_VISIBLE | LVS_REPORT | LVS_ALIGNTOP | LVS_SINGLESEL | LVS_SHOWSELALWAYS | LVS_AUTOARRANGE,
            0, 0, 0, 0,
            hWnd, (HMENU)1, g_hInst, NULL);

        ListView_SetExtendedListViewStyle(g_hLV, LVS_EX_DOUBLEBUFFER | LVS_EX_INFOTIP);

        AddColumns(g_hLV);
        AddItems(g_hLV);
        EnableTileView(g_hLV);
        return 0;
    }
    case WM_SIZE:
        if (g_hLV)
            MoveWindow(g_hLV, 0, 0, LOWORD(lParam), HIWORD(lParam), TRUE);
        return 0;

    case WM_DESTROY:
        PostQuitMessage(0);
        return 0;
    case WM_NOTIFY:
        OnNotify(wParam, lParam);
        return 0;
    }
    return DefWindowProcW(hWnd, msg, wParam, lParam);
}

int WINAPI wWinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance, LPWSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow)
{
    INITCOMMONCONTROLSEX iccx;
    g_hInst = hInstance;

    /* Initialize common controls */
    iccx.dwSize = sizeof(iccx);
    iccx.dwICC = ICC_STANDARD_CLASSES | ICC_WIN95_CLASSES;
    InitCommonControlsEx(&iccx);
    WNDCLASSW wc = {0};
    wc.lpfnWndProc = WndProc;
    wc.hInstance = hInstance;
    wc.lpszClassName = L"WineLvTileSmoke";
    wc.hCursor = LoadCursor(NULL, IDC_ARROW);

    RegisterClassW(&wc);

    HWND hWnd = CreateWindowExW(0, wc.lpszClassName, L"ListView Tile puColumns Smoke Test",
        WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW, CW_USEDEFAULT, CW_USEDEFAULT, 700, 450,
        NULL, NULL, hInstance, NULL);

    ShowWindow(hWnd, nCmdShow);

    MSG msg;
    while (GetMessageW(&msg, NULL, 0, 0))
    {
        TranslateMessage(&msg);
        DispatchMessageW(&msg);
    }
    return (int)msg.wParam;
}
```

--
  v12: More precise comparisons for whether to update columns

https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/merge_requests/10191

[PATCH v12 0/5] MR10191: Draft: comctl32: Implement Tile view style

Huw Campbell (＠HuwCampbell)

Huw Campbell

Huw Campbell

Huw Campbell

Huw Campbell

Huw Campbell

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