I eventually solved the problem using the List View SubItem Bounds property, which returns the bounds of the specific SubItem. I check that the bounds are contained by the parent's ClientRectangle, to avoid invalidate calls for items that are invisible, then pass the Bounds into the Invalidate call as Robert suggested. This is still slightly flickery, but not too bad. Thanks. Ruth Ivimey-Cook VS2005 / C# & VB

My suggestion: Don't start off trying to learn the .NET hierachy. It's huge. Learn in small chunks. Start by learning from a good book on OO techniques. I'm afraid all my basic reference works are out of date, but I'm sure a search in Amazon or Google will help. Look for books that have several *independent* good reviews. Learn the basic principles of encapsulation and data hiding, inheritance and abstraction. Understand what is meant by "Design by Contract". Don't go into multiple inheritance - it's a minefield, and not supported in .NET anyway. Learn about the failings of OO too: where it doesn't work as where it does. For example, that mututally dependent objects can cause unwanted side effects. It's harder to find info about where/why OO doesn't work because it's not "cool", but it is useful to know, all the same. Although not all directly relevant, books like "The Mythical Man Month", "extreme .NET" (Roodyn), "Microsoft Secrets", and "Classical and Object Oriented Software Engineering" (Scach) might be of interest. HTH, Ruth Ruth Ivimey-Cook VS2005 / C# & VB

If you can't get Vee to work with Threading (and you've confirmed it's not an issue in your code **), you could try a background process that does the acquisition and send the data to the GUI foreground process using a Windows Named Pipe. HTH, Ruth ** Most threading problems arise from invalidly sharing data - either implicitly or explicitly. Keep data sharing to an absolute minimum and ensure you're "lock"ing the rest. Ruth Ivimey-Cook VS2005 / C# & VB

Hi folks, Background: I am creating a control using VS2005 .NET Framework that reports on the progress of some background processes. There is no concept of data entry or selection here; the only user action is to scroll the list if required. The current implementation of this uses a ListBox-derived control with drawing code implemented in the DrawItem event handler. That code works (more or less) fine when the data that backs each item in the list is static. I have two items that change dynamically: a progress bar and a text field that must be able to change fairly quickly over time. The current implementation includes custom drawing code for the whole - there are no child controls. My problem is that although I can change the value of the data field easily enough, all I can think of doing to make the ListBox aware of the change is to call Invalidate() for the whole control, and the paint events don't keep up, and the resulting effect is very jerky - tending in fact towards only updating once the progress reaches 100% The reason for a global Invalidate is that I am not aware of anything in ListBox that enables me to discover where an individual item is on screen, so I can't paint it explicitly or do a bounded invalidate. I am wondering if ListView offers that ability, but can't see it if that's so. So, to put the question straight: With an owner drawn list box/view, how to I tell the control that a (sub)item must be repainted now - preferably this instant - because the data backing it has changed? Regards Ruth Ruth Ivimey-Cook VS2005 / C# & VB

Thanks for the link: it was useful. Do you suggest the DataGrid because you know the ListBox cannott do what I want?

Hi, I am speccing an application that requires a listbox control whose rows contain other (output-only) controls; namely a static image, a drawn image (i.e. can't be in a file), a progress bar and some plain text. Something like: #pic# < Image > [---Bar-- ] Text All in one row, with different controls simultaneously visible in other rows. I know it is possible to OwnerDraw all this from scratch. Is it possible to build it up using existing other controls, esp. the progressbar control. Any thoughts? Ruth