Drag and drop files from the Desktop (or Windows Explorer) to RadListView

[Alejandro]

Hello guys, I hope you are doing great.

I'm working on a WinForms project. One of the requirements is to drag files from the Desktop (or Windows Explorer) and drop them on a RadListView component. 

I set the AllowDrop and AllowDragDrop properties of the my listView object, and then I added the following events:

private void listView_DragEnter(object sender, DragEventArgs e)
{
    MessageBox.Show("DragEnter");
}

private void listView_DragDrop(object sender, DragEventArgs e)
{
    MessageBox.Show("DragDrop");
}

When I drag an item from the Desktop and enter the listView area, I get the "DragEnter" message. If I comment that code out, and then drop an item on the listView, I don't get the "DragDrop" message. 

My first question is: is it possible to achieve what I'm trying to do? And if it is possible, my second question is: what am I doing wrong?

I created a small test project to isolate the situation. The following is the complete code of the form class:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using Telerik.WinControls;

namespace DragFromDesktop
{
    public partial class DragFromDesktopForm : Telerik.WinControls.UI.RadForm
    {
        public DragFromDesktopForm()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void DragFromDesktopForm_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {

        }

        private void closeButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            this.Close();
        }

        private void listView_DragEnter(object sender, DragEventArgs e)
        {
            //MessageBox.Show("DragEnter");
        }

        private void listView_DragDrop(object sender, DragEventArgs e)
        {
            MessageBox.Show("DragDrop");
        }
    }
}

I'm also attaching an example of how the form looks like. The big white square is the list view which I want to drop the items to.

Thanks in advance.

Best regards,

Alejandro

[Alejandro]

I finally made it work using something like this:

/// <summary>
/// Event triggered when an item begins to be dragged on the list.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="sender">The control which the action is for.</param>
/// <param name="e">The event data.</param>
private void listView_DragEnter(object sender, DragEventArgs e)
{
    if (e.Data.GetDataPresent(DataFormats.FileDrop))
    {
        e.Effect = DragDropEffects.Copy;
    }
}

/// <summary>
/// Event triggered when the drag and drop operation ends.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="sender">The control which the action is for.</param>
/// <param name="e">The event data.</param>
private void listView_DragDrop(object sender, DragEventArgs e)
{
    string[] handles = (string[])e.Data.GetData(DataFormats.FileDrop, false);

    foreach (string path in handles)
    {
        if (File.Exists(path))
        {
            // TODO: add the file to the list.
        }
        else if (Directory.Exists(path))
        {
            DirectoryInfo info = new DirectoryInfo(path);
            FileInfo[] files = info.GetFiles();
            foreach (FileInfo file in files)
            {
                // TODO: add the file to the list.
            }
        }
    }
}

[Dess | Tech Support Engineer, Principal]

Hello Alejandro,

Thank you for contacting Telerik Support.

I am glad that the issue you were facing is now resolved. Performing Drag-and-Drop Operations in Windows Forms article may be quite useful about accomplishing drag-and-drop operations within Windows applications.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any additional questions.

Regards,
Desislava
Telerik