I am using ASP.NET 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005.

I have a DetailsView that the user can use to view and edit a record. One of these fields has only 7 possible values, so in edit mode, I want to switch to a dropdownlist. I had no problems doing this. I changed to a template field, then changed the textbox to a dropdownlist.

What I want to do now is set the SelectedValue of that dropdownlist to match the existing value of the record being edited, but for the life of me, I can't figure out how to do this.

First, I am confused about whether SelectedValue should be showing up as a property of asp:dropdownlist in the page design (not code behind). For me, it doesn't. I have seen many posts suggesting something like SelectedValue='<%# Bind("OrgType") %>' and assume that either this construction is not available in asp.net 2.0 or that I have a bad setting somewhere.

I have tried a few variations of FindControl, but nothing I've tried is working, including some suggestions from a similar post earlier today:

My Detailsview is called DetailsView1. The DropDownList (DropDownList1) is in the <EditItemTemplate>. Label7 is used in the <ItemTemplate>. The Text and Value properties for the seven items in the dropdownlist are identical text values.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Chris

You've got everything right on how to do it.

You are putting SelectedValue='<%# Bind("OrgType") %>' as an attribute of the dropdownlist?  I've got some example of something similar on my blog.  (that is, how to show just a label with just the selectedvalue which is actually in the database) on my blog at the URL below.

http://peterkellner.net/2006/10/27/smalllistaccessimproved/

 I'm assuming that selectedvalue is the value that appears in the row of the gridview if you were just to display it as a label.  True?

CSchnaars:

First, I am confused about whether SelectedValue should be showing up as a property of asp:dropdownlist in the page design (not code behind). For me, it doesn't. I have seen many posts suggesting something like SelectedValue='<%# Bind("OrgType") %>' and assume that either this construction is not available in asp.net 2.0 or that I have a bad setting somewhere.

Yes, it's a property of asp:dropdownlist. Intellisense does not show it for some reason (I'm using VWD2005EE)., so just type it up, like this:

It should work.

Thanks very much. Just typing SelectedValue in with a bind statement worked flawlessly. I just wish I'd thought to try that.

chris

andreDotNet:

CSchnaars:

First, I am confused about whether SelectedValue should be showing up as a property of asp:dropdownlist in the page design (not code behind). For me, it doesn't. I have seen many posts suggesting something like SelectedValue='<%# Bind("OrgType") %>' and assume that either this construction is not available in asp.net 2.0 or that I have a bad setting somewhere.

Yes, it's a property of asp:dropdownlist. Intellisense does not show it for some reason (I'm using VWD2005EE)., so just type it up, like this:

<asp:DropDownList ID="DropDown1" runat="server" SelectedValue='<%# Bind("FieldName") %>'>

It should work.

I tried this but there is no  SelectedValue property in dropdownlist at design time.

Hi bhav27,

 It doesn't show in design time - but it is valid. For some reason intellisense doesn't bring it up - so you have to type it!

Hi all,

 This posting is just what I was looking for.  However, when I view the page, I get

Parser Error Message: The 'SelectedValue' property cannot be set declaratively.

I am using Visual Studio and IE7.

 I have the following code within the detailsview:

Any ideas?

Paul

Hi all,

 This posting is just what I was looking for.  However, when I view the page, I get

Parser Error Message: The 'SelectedValue' property cannot be set declaratively.

I am using Visual Studio and IE7.

 I have the following code within the detailsview:

Any ideas?

Paul

 thanks guys - good post

i just thought i had a retarded version of VS