Question

When a comboBox in C# is dynamically populated the comboBox appears blank until the user clicks on it to view the available items in the dropdown. Ideally, I would like to use this blank space (prior to clicking the dropdown) to be used to give the user a hint as to what s/he should do. For example, it might say something like, “Select such-and-such…” Is there a way to do this? I tried setting the Text property, but that didn’t do anything. I am using Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Express Edition. Thanks.

Answer 1

Add the “hint” item to the combo box:

yourComboBox.Items.Insert(0, "Select one");

then set the selected index of the combo box to 0 like this:

yourComboBox.SelectedIndex = 0;