Is it possible to bind a ComboBox
to a list of objects, but have the selectedvalue property point to the object, not a property of the object?
I only ask because we have some Business Objects which have references to other objects - such as a 'Year' object. That year object may need to be switched out for another year object.
Only solution I can come up with is to have another class with a single property, in this case pointing to a year object. then bind the combobox to a List of these and set both the display and value members to the single property.
But doing that for any 'lookups' we have seems like a bit of a pain??
If you set the ValueMember to null the selected value will always be the object, not a property:
{
public class TestObject
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public int Value { get; set; }
}
public partial class Form1 : Form
{
private System.Windows.Forms.ComboBox comboBox1;
public Form1()
{
this.comboBox1 = new System.Windows.Forms.ComboBox();
this.SuspendLayout();
//
// comboBox1
//
this.comboBox1.FormattingEnabled = true;
this.comboBox1.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(23, 13);
this.comboBox1.Name = "comboBox1";
this.comboBox1.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(121, 21);
this.comboBox1.TabIndex = 0;
this.comboBox1.SelectedValueChanged += new System.EventHandler(this.comboBox1_SelectedValueChanged);
//
// Form1
//
this.AutoScaleDimensions = new System.Drawing.SizeF(6F, 13F);
this.AutoScaleMode = System.Windows.Forms.AutoScaleMode.Font;
this.ClientSize = new System.Drawing.Size(284, 262);
this.Controls.Add(this.comboBox1);
this.Name = "Form1";
this.Text = "Form1";
this.ResumeLayout(false);
BindingList<TestObject> objects = new BindingList<TestObject>();
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
{
objects.Add(new TestObject() { Name = "Object " + i.ToString(), Value = i });
}
comboBox1.ValueMember = null;
comboBox1.DisplayMember = "Name";
comboBox1.DataSource = objects;
}
private void comboBox1_SelectedValueChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (comboBox1.SelectedValue != null)
{
TestObject current = (TestObject)comboBox1.SelectedValue;
MessageBox.Show(current.Value.ToString());
}
}
}
}