New to Telerik UI for ASP.NET AJAX? Download free 30-day trial

Templates Overview

Templates are fully supported by RadComboBox control. If you do not specify an ItemTemplate, all items are rendered using their Text property as plain text. If you specify an ItemTemplate, then the respective template is used for rendering. You can embed any content inside a template:

  • HTML markup.

  • ASP.NET server controls.

  • Other third-party controls (other Telerik RadControls for ASP.NET as well).

Templates will not work when RadComboBox items are added via a WebService.

In design time, add item templates to your RadComboBox control using the Template Design Surface. RadComboBox supports global template which affects the appearance of all items in the control.

Example

Shows how to use templates to create the following RadComboBox:

ComboBox Custom Attributes Images

An <ItemTemplate> section is added to the RadComboBox declaration. The image in the template and the text that appears in the template is taken from the RadComboBoxItem using <%# DataBinder.Eval %> statements.

<telerik:RadComboBox RenderMode="Lightweight" ID="RadComboBox1" MarkFirstMatch="True" runat="server" Height="297px"
    Width="350px" Skin="Default" AutoPostBack="False" HighlightTemplatedItems="True"
    ShowToggleImage="True">
    <ItemTemplate>
        <table >
            <tr>
                <td>
                    <img src='Images/<%# DataBinder.Eval(Container, "Attributes['ImagePath']") %>' alt="" />
                </td>
                <td>
                    <%# DataBinder.Eval(Container, "Attributes['DisplayName']") %>
                    (<%# DataBinder.Eval(Container, "Text") %>)
                </td>
            </tr>
        </table>
    </ItemTemplate>
    <Items>
        <telerik:RadComboBoxItem ImagePath="winter.png" DisplayName="winter.png | Size: 2,134 Kb | Last Mofified: 01/11/2005"
            Text="Winter"></telerik:RadComboBoxItem>
        <telerik:RadComboBoxItem ImagePath="fall.png" DisplayName="fall.png | Size: 2,134 Kb | Last Mofified: 01/11/2005"
            Text="Fall"></telerik:RadComboBoxItem>
        <telerik:RadComboBoxItem ImagePath="spring.png" DisplayName="spring.png | Size: 2,134 Kb | Last Mofified: 01/11/2005"
            Text="Spring"></telerik:RadComboBoxItem>
        <telerik:RadComboBoxItem ImagePath="summer.png" DisplayName="summer.png | Size: 2,134 Kb | Last Mofified: 01/11/2005"
            Text="Summer"></telerik:RadComboBoxItem>
    </Items>
</telerik:RadComboBox>

Before the template can use the RadComboBox item's properties to bind the elements in the template, the application needs to explicitly bind the items by calling DataBind method of RadComboBoxItem objects.


     protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
     {   
         for (int i = 0; i < RadComboBox1.Items.Count; i++)   
         {      
             RadComboBox1.Items[i].DataBind();   
         }      
     }


        Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs) Handles Me.Load
            Dim i As Integer = 0

            While i < RadComboBox1.Items.Count
                RadComboBox1.Items(i).DataBind()
                i = i + 1
            End While
        End Sub

Here is the same RadComboBox without the template:

ComboBox No Template

See Also

In this article