Populating DropDownList in GridView

[RobertTheProgrammer]

Hi again,

Okay, I decided the GridView is the way to go to solve my problem. But now I've got another problem.

I've found plenty of examples about how to add a DropDownList item to the grid view, how to bind it and how to add the selection items to the list. My problem is that in all the examples I can find all show how to add the selection items from a database only. I don't always want to do that. Sometimes I want to add just from a predefined list of values.

For example:

                <asp:TemplateField HeaderText="Color">
                    <ItemTemplate>
                        <asp:DropDownList DataSource="<%# GetColors() %> 
                        DataTextField="Color" DataValueField="Color" 
                        ID="ddlColor" runat="server">
                        </asp:DropDownList>
                    </ItemTemplate>
                </asp:TemplateField>
 

(I haven't done the binding step yet). In the examples I've found, the GetColors() method selects from a database. Instead, I want to simply have the selections 'RED', 'BLUE', 'GREEN' only. Whatever the user enters will eventually get stored to the database via the binding.

Help! Again, I ask your patience as I'm rather new to this.

Robert

[DrBunchman]

Hi Robert,

You can create a ListItem between the DropDownList tags for each option you want. Take a look at the following example:

<asp:DropDownList ID="ddColour" runat="server">
     <asp:ListItem Text="RED" Value="0" />
     <asp:ListItem Text="GREEN" Value="1" />
</asp:DropDownList>
 

I'm sure you can see how this works but let me know if you need any more assistance.

Hope this helps,

Dr B

[RobertTheProgrammer]

Thanks for the response. Works perfectly. I'm still learning the nuances on this GridView stuff, I really appreciate you taking the time.

Robert