Question

Wondering if there is a way upon clicking on a hyper link to set drop downlist to visible in code behind or asp?

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Answer 1

If you have to do it in code-behind, then use a LinkButton instead of a HyperLink. Then it will have a click event just like any button and in that click event you can set the other element to .Visible=true.

However, does this need to be done in code-behind? Keep in mind the difference in “visibility” between server-side and client-side code:

• If set to .Visible=false on the server-side, the content is not delivered to the client at all.
• If set to display:none on the client-side, the content is present and can be viewed in the page source, it’s just not displayed by the browser.

In some cases, the former is needed for security purposes. But if it’s just a matter of user experience then I would recommend showing/hiding the content entirely on the client-side so as to avoid post-backs that do nothing more than change element display properties.

For example (assuming jQuery):

<a id="toggler" href="#">Show the content</a>
<div id="hidden" style="display:none;">Content</div>
<script>
  $(document).ready(function(){
    $("#toggler").click(function(){
      $("#hidden").show();
    });
  });
</script>