Change the background color of Winform ListView headers

Question

How can you change the background color of the Headers of a ListView?

Answer 1

I know this is a little late to the party but I still saw this post and this would have helped me. Here is a little abstracted application of the code david supplied

using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Drawing;

//List view header formatters
public static void colorListViewHeader(ref ListView list, Color backColor, Color foreColor)
{
    list.OwnerDraw = true;
    list.DrawColumnHeader += 
        new DrawListViewColumnHeaderEventHandler
        (
            (sender, e) => headerDraw(sender, e, backColor, foreColor)
        );
    list.DrawItem += new DrawListViewItemEventHandler(bodyDraw);
}

private static void headerDraw(object sender, DrawListViewColumnHeaderEventArgs e, Color backColor, Color foreColor)
{
    using (SolidBrush backBrush = new SolidBrush(backColor))
    {
        e.Graphics.FillRectangle(backBrush, e.Bounds);
    }

    using (SolidBrush foreBrush = new SolidBrush(foreColor))
    {
        e.Graphics.DrawString(e.Header.Text, e.Font, foreBrush, e.Bounds);
    }
}

private static void bodyDraw(object sender, DrawListViewItemEventArgs e)
{
    e.DrawDefault = true;
}

Then call this in your form constructor

public Form()
{
    InitializeComponent();
    *CLASS NAME*.colorListViewHeader(ref myListView, *SOME COLOR*, *SOME COLOR*);
}

Just replace the *CLASS NAME* with whatever class you put the first bit of code in and the *SOME COLOR*'s with some sort of color.

//Some examples:
Color.white
SystemColors.ActiveCaption
Color.FromArgb(0, 102, 255, 102);