WinForms ComboBox with values like the WebForms DropDownList
Want to have values for each ComboBox item in WinForms? Here is a simple way of doing so. Add a class in your project named ComboBoxItem:
public class ComboBoxItem { private string _value; private string _text;public string Value { get { return _value; } } public string Text { get { return _text ; } }public ComboBoxItem (string cValue, cText) { this._value = cValue; this._text = cText; } }
Now when adding items to the ComboBox, you would do this:
ComboBox myBox = new ComboBox (); myBox.Items.Add (new ComboBoxItem ("1", "January")); myBox.Items.Add (new ComboBoxItem ("2", "February"));myBox.DisplayMember = "Text"; // Specifies what to display this.Controls.Add (myBox);
To retrieve the current selected value and text, you could do:
string SelectedItemValue = (myBox.SelectedItem as ComboBoxItem).Value;
string SelectedItemText = (myBox.SelectedItem as ComboBoxItem).Text;
If you’re using .NET 2.0 you can try this:
comboBox1.ValueMember = “Key”;
comboBox1.DisplayMember = “Value”;
comboBox1.Items.Add(new KeyValuePair(0, “zero”));
comboBox1.Items.Add(new KeyValuePair(1, “one”));
if using .NET 1.x i think there’s another class you could use (without the generics)… but can’t remember exactly.
new KeyValuePair<int, string>(0, “zero”) that is !
Hi guys:
Another way to get the same behaviour is to overriding the “ToString” method.
Like this:
public class ComboBoxItem
{
private string _value;
private string _text;
public string Value { get { return _value; } }
public string Text { get { return _text ; } }
public ComboBoxItem (string cValue, cText)
{
this._value = cValue;
this._text = cText;
}
public override string ToString()
{
return this.Text;
}
}
NahuelGQ