Accessing Controls Inside Templates

In this example you will see how to find RadComboBox control nested in RibbonBarTemplateItem of RadRibbonBar control.

Find the RadComboBox server-side

In order to find the control that is located in a RibbonBarTemplateItem of a RadRibbonBar, first you need to find the tab that it is located in. This is done by using the FindTabByValue property (note that to make this work, the tab needs to have a previously assigned value, ex: <telerik:RibbonBarTab Text="Tab2"Value="Tab2"> )Then you will need to find the Group by its index (this is zero in the particular case - Groups[0]) that is placed in the tab with Value="Tab2" and get the Group's first item (again this is done by index - Items[0]). Finally, by using the FindControl property you can access the RadComboBox control.

Alternatively, a tab can also be found by its index as well. Furthermore, depending on one’s requirements, a Group can be referred to by using the FindByValue property of the tab ( with the code below such example would be tab2.FindByValue(“Group1”); ).

Here is the markup:

<telerik:RibbonBarTab Text="Tab2" Value="Tab2">
    <telerik:RibbonBarGroup Text="Font">
        <items>
            <telerik:RibbonBarTemplateItem>
                    <telerik:RadComboBox RenderMode="Lightweight" ID="RadComboBox1" runat="server" Width="90px">
                        <Items>
                            <telerik:RadComboBoxItem Text="Cambria" />
                            <telerik:RadComboBoxItem Text="Calibri" Selected="true" />
                            <telerik:RadComboBoxItem Text="Arial" />
                            <telerik:RadComboBoxItem Text="Book Antiqua" />
                        </Items>
                    </telerik:RadComboBox>
            </telerik:RibbonBarTemplateItem>
        </items>
    </telerik:RibbonBarGroup>
</telerik:RibbonBarTab>

RibbonBarTab tab2 = RadRibbonBar1.FindTabByValue("Tab2");
RadComboBox combobox1 = (RadComboBox)tab2.Groups[0].Items[0].FindControl("RadComboBox1");

Dim tab2 As RibbonBarTab = RadRibbonBar1.FindTabByValue("Tab2")
Dim combobox1 As RadComboBox = DirectCast(tab2.Groups(0).Items(0).FindControl("RadComboBox1"), RadComboBox)