combobox in C# not getting populated - c#

I have a windows forms app in C#. Platform is vS 2005.
Following is the piece of code:
namespace HostApp
{
public partial class Form1 : Form
{
private void comboBox2_SelectedIndexChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
comboBox2.Items.Add("Apples");
comboBox2.Items.Add("Oranges");
comboBox2.Items.Add("Grapefruits");
}
}
}
I run the app but the fruit names do not show up in the drop down of comboBox2. I am sure I am missing some line of code to "populate" the drop down with the entered values.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Viren

You add the items in the handler for the SelectedIndexChanged event. You need to move the code to InitializeComponent or another appropriate place.

Please check the following things:
You have added AutoPostBack="true" in the combo-box so that the selectedChange event is fired and post back happens.
Make sure you have nothung in ur Page load which refreshed the combo box. You can use IsPostBack to acheive loading of the values.

Your items are being added when the selected item is changed, but as there are no existing items this will never happen. Move those lines to the constructor for Form1 and it'll work.

The code you provided will only add items to comboBox2 when the selection changes in the control that is hooked up to comboBox2_SelectedIndexChanged.
There are two concepts at play here: Control Initialization/Databinding, and event handling.
The code you have written essentially says "If somebody selects something new in the combo box, add these 3 options to the combo box". That would happen every time the selected index changes in the combo box. This, of course, assumes you have even hooked up this event handler to the combo box to begin with. This is event handling.
What you are probably trying to do is initialize the control. This happens when you load the page and want to setup the initial options available in your page controls. Using the Init or Load event is probably where you want to setup the choices in your control. This is also when you would initialize your event handlers to say "When something happens, do this".

Move the code to the Page_Load event ...
The SelectedIndexChanged only fires when the ComboBox index has changed AND AutoPostBack = True.
EDIT: Sorry, it's a Form, I was thinking web ... move to Form_Load

For people having difficulties with autopostback and viewstate, beware of the page_load event.
If have been getting on this page alot when trying to google, so that's the reason i'll post it here.
If you fill your dropdownlist (or any other control) in the page_load method, be sure to write an extra control is there is a postback (triggered when changing value of a dropdownlist).
If you don't make that control, your controls will be refilled.
That mistake took me a while to figure out.
So what i'm saying is
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (!IsPostBack)
{
//fill your controls here
}
}

Related

Handling OnSelectedIndexChanged before SelectionChangeCommitted?

I'm working on an async binding control that inherits a ComboBox (and a Textbox in other scenarios, but that's not really relevant..). I've replaced a bunch of existing ComboBoxes on the forms in this application, which for most of these controls has worked perfectly. Except for one...
My box overrides the OnSelectedIndexChanged method with the following code:
protected override void OnSelectedIndexChanged(EventArgs e)
{
if (!Helper.ItemsApplied)
return; //don't worry! the index will be selected when the items are applied!
_selectedValue = Helper.GetValue(Text);
base.OnSelectedIndexChanged(e);
}
This works fine, until someone tries to handle the value change using the SelectionChangeCommitted event. Perfectly within reason though; I shouldn't be changing their code to use the SelectedIndexChanged, because this functionality shouldn't execute when the value is programmatically invoked (see the MSDN Article).
However, my functionality does need to be executed when the index is programmatically changed, but it needs to execute before the SelectionChangeCommitted event does! The SelectionChangeCommitted event is fired before the SelectedIndexChanged event.
Any ideas on how I could get round this? Preferably only by changing the code in my control and not in their form?

ASP .NET Button event handlers do not fire on the first click, but on the second click after a PostBack

Background: I am customizing an existing ASP .NET / C# application. It has it's own little "framework" and conventions for developers to follow when extending/customizing its functionality. I am currently extending some of it's administrative functionality, to which the framework provides a contract to enforce implementation of the GetAdministrationInterface() method, which returns System.Web.UI.Control. This method is called during the Page_Load() method of the page hosting the GUI interface.
Problem: I have three buttons in my GUI, each of which have been assigned an Event Handler. My administration GUI loads up perfectly fine, but clicking any of the buttons doesn't do what I expect them to do. However, when I click them a second time, the buttons work.
I placed breakpoints at the beginning of each event handler method and stepped through my code. On the first click, none of the event handlers were triggered. On the second click, they fired.
Any ideas?
Example of Button Definition (within GetAdministrationInterface)
public override Control GetAdministrationInterface()
{
// more code...
Button btn = new Button();
btn.Text = "Click Me!";
btn.Click += new EventHandler(Btn_Click);
// more code...
}
Example of Event Handler Method Definition
void Btn_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// Do Something
}
Page_Load Method that calls GetAdministrationInterface
protected void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
if (!Page.IsAsync)
{
List<AdministrationInterface> interfaces = <DATABASE CALL>;
foreach(AdministrationInteface ai in interfaces)
{
placeholderDiv.Controls.Add(ai.GetAdministrationInterface());
}
}
}
Good grief! I knew it was going to be something this stupid. Purely my fault of course and my lack of knowledge in ASP .NET.
After doing a multitude of Google searches and eventually being blocked by Google on suspicion of being a bot running automated scripts, I managed to squeeze in one last search in and stumbled across this article. Already at the point of giving up, I tried my best to read the article without skipping 10 lines at a time or looking for pretty pictures. In the section titled Assigning IDs to Dynamically Created Controls, I read these magical and most joyful words:
If you view the source HTML before you click the not-working button and after you have clicked it, you will notice a small difference. The buttons have different HTML IDs before and after the post-back. I got ctl04 and ctl05 before the post-back and ctl02 and ctl03 after the post-back.
ASP.NET button recognizes events by checking for a value for its ID in the Request.Form collection. (In truth it happens differently and controls do not check Request.Form collection by themselves. Page passes post data to controls by their IDs and to controls that are registered to be notified about post data). ASP.NET does not fire the Click event, because the button's ID has changed between the post-backs. The button you have clicked and the button you see after are different buttons for ASP.NET.
Sure enough, when I viewed the HTML the first time, my button had the ID ctl04$ctl36. After clicking the button, my button had the ID ctl04$ctl33.
So there you have it! All I had to do was set the ID on the buttons and presto! My event handlers are now being called!
Sample Solution:
public override Control GetAdministrationInterface()
{
// more code...
Button btn = new Button();
btn.Text = "Click Me!";
// !!THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE!!
btn.ID = "The_Bane_of_My_Existence";
// !!THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE!!
btn.Click += new EventHandler(Btn_Click);
// more code...
}
What a great way to spend two days...
I had the same problem, but the accepted answer here was not causing it. I had a text box and a search button, and clicking the button the first time didn't perform the search. The event handler of the button wasn't being hit. But clicking the button a second time did trigger the event on the server. Here is why:
If you have an <asp:Textbox> with its AutoPostBack set to true, after typing in the text box and then moving to click a button, the text box causes a post-back immediately the moment it loses focus. So the click even of the button doesn't count (the page is already posted-back as a result of the text box's event). That's why when you click the button a second time, it works because the text box is not involved in the second post-back.
Set the AutoPostBackproperty of the <asp:Textbox> to false to fix this issue.
A quick fix is to set an ID to the ASCX control your are loading on a page. For example, if your code is like this:
UserControl SpecsControl = (UserControl)Page.LoadControl("../name.ascx");
SpecsContainer.Controls.Add(SpecsControl);
then you need to add a line (before Controls.Add):
SpecsControl.ID = "Aribtrary_Name";
Then your handler method is fired at the first click.
I was facing the same problem. My button froze after my first click. For me this annoying problem got solved when I disabled the button's EnableViewState attribute.
For me it was the UpdatePanel , my Button and my TextBox were both inside an UpdatePanel , so when I post-back , it caused some weird behavior . It took it outside of the UpdatePanel and that fixed it .
Even i had the same problem. the cause was "localhost:1656/secure/login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2f".
if the request contain %2f as query string, the first post will not be succeeded even though "%2f" is representing "/".
one way to avoid this by having a condition check in pageload
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
string queryString = Request.QueryString.ToString();
if(queryString == "ReturnUrl=%2f")
{
Response.Redirect("/secure/login.aspx");
}
}
Whilst its hard to know exactly without seeing the full Page_load method it does smell a little bit like the event handlers are not hooking up until the page is reloaded.
eg:
if (IsPostBack) {
// Add handlers here ...
}
I had same problem. And I searched on internet i didnt find a solution. After that i found sample code and I used it. It worked for me. Web site link is below:
http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/abhikumarvatsa/calling-an-Asp-Net-C-Sharp-method-web-method-using-javascript/

Why would my child controls be uninitialized at the time of event attachment?

I have a page and a user control — we'll call them Detail.aspx and Selector.ascx.
Let's say the page shows the details of individual records in a database. The user control basically consists of a DropDownList control and some associated HTML. The DropDownList displays a list of other records to switch to at any time.
When the DropDownList fires its SelectedIndexChanged event, I'd like the parent page, Detail.aspx in this case, to handle it. After all, he'll need to know what was selected so that he can appropriately change the URL and the details shown, etc.
To do that, I've done what I usually do, which is also what the top answer says to do in this StackOverflow question:
public event EventHandler DropDownSelectedIndexChanged
{
add
{
MyDropDownList.SelectedIndexChanged += value;
}
remove
{
MyDropDownList.SelectedIndexChanged -= value;
}
}
The above code appears in the Selector.ascx.cs codebehind file.
As a result, on Detail.aspx, I can use it like so:
<cc1:RecordSelector ID="RecordSelector1" runat="server"
OnDropDownSelectedIndexChanged="RecordSelector1_DropDownSelectedIndexChanged" />
So far nothing fancy or surprising.
Here is my problem:
This causes a NullReferenceException when the browser hits Detail.aspx.
Debugging the problem shows that when the page is first hit, the public event I've shown above tries to add the event, but MyDropDownList is null, thus throwing the exception. From what I can tell, the events are added (or attempted to be added) before the Selector user control's Load event fires and thus also before the DropDownList's Load event fires.
Curiously, if I omit the OnDropDownSelectedIndexChanged attribute from Detail.aspx and instead put the following in the Page_Load event in Detail.aspx.cs:
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
RecordSelector1.DropDownSelectedIndexChanged += new EventHandler(RecordSelector1_DropDownSelectedIndexChanged);
}
It works exactly as expected. The events are attached and handled just fine. No problems.
But this means several bad things:
I have to remember not to use the designer to add said event onto my user control
I have to remember not to add the event via attributes when working in source view
Worst of all, as the control's author I need to make sure everybody else using my control knows 1 and 2
So what am I doing wrong? Every example I've seen thus far shows similar usage of exposing child controls' events through a user control.
The reason this works:
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
RecordSelector1.DropDownSelectedIndexChanged
+= new EventHandler(RecordSelector1_DropDownSelectedIndexChanged);
}
and this does not:
<cc1:RecordSelector ID="RecordSelector1" runat="server"
OnDropDownSelectedIndexChanged="RecordSelector1_DropDownSelectedIndexChanged" />
is because the first one adds the handler after the control has been initialized (via the page's Init). The second example gets parsed much earlier and as such the page is attempting to add the handler before the control has initialized.
Due to the nature of the page's life cycle I think you may have to live with adding the event handler in the code-behind. There will be no way to add the handler before the control is initialized because that control will always be null prior to initialization.

DropDownList.SelectedValue changes (as a child control in a FormView) aren't sticking

Okay, I have a FormView with a couple of child controls in an InsertItemTemplate. One of them is a DropDownList, called DdlAssigned. I reference it in the Page's OnLoad method like so:
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
((DropDownList)FrmAdd.FindControl("DdlAssigned")).SelectedValue =
((Guid)Membership.GetUser().ProviderUserKey).ToString();
}
Basically I'm just setting the default value of the DropDownList to the user currently logged in.
Anyway, when the page finishes loading the SelectedValue change isn't reflected on the page. I stepped through OnLoad and I can see the change reflected in my Watch list, but when all is said and done nothing's different on the page.
I figured it out. I'm still missing exactly why it doesn't work just on FormLoad, but performing the change in the FormView's DataBound event does the trick.
protected void FrmAdd_DataBound(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// This is the same code as before, but done in the FormView's DataBound event.
((DropDownList)FrmAdd.Row.FindControl("DdlAssigned")).SelectedValue =
((Guid)Membership.GetUser().ProviderUserKey).ToString();
}
So, I guess the general rule of thumb is that if you are having problems making changes to controls when working with databinding, try to make them immediately after it has been bound.
I had a problem with dropdownlists and making the first value say something like, "Please select a value..." but without making it an actual selectable item, nor show up on the dropdownlist. I was binding the ddl in the page_load and I have to make sure that I set the text of the dropdownlist, AFTER it's been bound with data. You've accomplished the same thing by adding it to your databound section.

Best way to swap two .NET controls based on radio buttons

I've got a form where I have two radio buttons and two interchangeable controls (made up of a ListView and a handful of buttons). Based on which radio button is selected I want to display the proper control to the user.
The way I'm doing this now is just loading both controls and setting up an OnRadioButtonSelectionChanged() method which gets called at form load (to set the initial state) and at any time the selection is changed. This method just sets the visible property on each control to the proper value.
This seems to work well enough, but I was curious as to if there was a better or more common way of doing it?
Yep, that's pretty much how I do it. I would set the CheckedChanged event of both radio buttons to point at a single event handler and would place the following code to swap out the visible control.
private void OnRadioButtonCheckedChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Control1.Visible = RadioButton1.Checked;
Control2.Visible = RadioButton2.Checked;
}
Well you could also use databinding... seems a bit more elegant to me. Suppose you have two radiobuttons "rbA" and "rbB" and two textboxes "txtA" and "txtB". And you want to have txtA visible only when rbA is checked and txtB visible only when rbB is checked. You could do it like so :
private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
txtA.DataBindings.Add("Visible", rbA, "Checked");
txtB.DataBindings.Add("Visible", rbB, "Checked");
}
However... I observed that using UserControls instead of TextBoxes breaks the functionality and I should go read on the net why..
LATER EDIT :
The databinding works two-ways! : If you programatically set (from somewhere else) the visibility of the txtA to false the rbA will become unchecked. That's the beauty of Databinding.

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