Question

I am trying to achieve the following:

1. Eliminate the FormView’s default edit link button.

2. Display the FormView in edit mode on Page_Load with current data and additional DDL data selections.

Currently I have the following to bind the DDL to the current database value based upon id = x etc:

<asp:DropDownList ID="DropDownList1" runat="server"
SelectedValue='<%# Bind("xxx") %>' 
DataSourceID="xxx"
DataTextField="xxx"
DataValueField="xxx"
ondatabound="DropDownList1_DataBound">

Via C# code I do this to add additional DDL list items for selection: (which is a waste of my energy because the data is already in the database!)

protected void DropDownList1 _DataBound(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
     DropDownList DropDownList1 = (DropDownList)FormView1.FindControl("DropDownList1");
     DropDownList1.Items.Insert(1, new ListItem("0 - 1 km/h", "0"));
     DropDownList1.Items.Insert(2, new ListItem("2 - 5 km/h", "1"));
     DropDownList1.Items.Insert(3, new ListItem("6 - 11 km/h", "2"));
     DropDownList1.Items.Insert(4, new ListItem("12 - 19 km/h", "3"));
     DropDownList1.Items.Insert(5, new ListItem("20 - 28 km/h", "4"));
}

There has got to be a better way!

Answer 1

Dont know exactly how you are connecting to the database but if you are using datacontext linq to sql is a good way to do it. Your ‘ddl’ will have an onLoad event and you can use a query in the code behind. For example:

<asp:DropDownList ID="DropDownList1" runat="server"
                  onLoad="DropDownList1_Load"
                  AutoPostBack="true" />

And then in the code behind:

protected void DropDownList1_Load(object sender, EventARgs e)
{
    YourDataContext db = new YourDataContext();
    var qry = from a in db.table1
              select a;
    foreach(var itm in qry)
    {
        DropDownList1.Items.Add(new ListItem(itm.speedRange.ToString(), itm.id.ToString()));
     db.Dispose();
}