Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Dynamic ComboBox from Data Source

EO.Wpf ComboBox derives from ItemsControl, so you can uses the ItemsControl's ItemsSource property to populate the ComboBox. This topic covers the following scenarios:

Populating from a string array

Populating from a list of complex objects

Populating from a string array

The following sample uses an array for ItemsSource:

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//Populate the items from an array
ComboBox1.ItemsSource = new string[]{"Item 1", "Item 2", "Item 3", "Item 4", "Item 5"};

The above code produces the following result:

ItemsSource takes any objects that implements IEnumerable. The following code uses a List to achieve the same result:

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//Build the item list
List<string> items = new List<string>();
items.Add("Item 1");
items.Add("Item 2");
items.Add("Item 3");
items.Add("Item 4");
items.Add("Item 5");

//Populate the ComboBox from the item list
ComboBox1.ItemsSource = items;

Populating from a list of complex objects

The object in the list can be complex object. For example, the following sample demonstrates how to use the Celebrity object to populate the ComboBox:

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Celebrity[] popularSingers = new Celebrity[]
{
    new Celebrity("Carly Rae Jepsen", "Carly_Rae_Jepsen.gif"),
    new Celebrity("Cher Lloyd", "Cher_Lloyd.gif"),
    new Celebrity("Chris Brown", "Chris_Brown.gif"),
    new Celebrity("Flo Rida", "Flo_Rida.gif"),
    new Celebrity("Justin Bieber", "Justin_Bieber.gif"),
    new Celebrity("Katy Perry", "Katy_Perry.gif"),
    new Celebrity("Kelly Clarkson", "Kelly_Clarkson.gif"),
};

ComboBox1.ItemsSource = popularSingers;

Note in the above sample, it is necessary to set the ComboBox's ItemTemplate property in order to display the item correctly. In the above example, the ItemTemplate contains a single TextBlock element. You can customize this template to customize the content of each item. For example, the following code displays the person's image in the ComboBox:

XAML
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<Window x:Class="Test.MainWindow"
        xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
        xmlns:eo="http://schemas.essentialobjects.com/wpf/"
        Title="MainWindow" Height="250" Width="350">
    <StackPanel>
        <eo:ComboBox x:Name="ComboBox1" Width="250" HorizontalAlignment="Left">
            <eo:ComboBox.ItemTemplate>
                <DataTemplate>
                    <Grid>
                        <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
                            <ColumnDefinition></ColumnDefinition>
                            <ColumnDefinition></ColumnDefinition>
                        </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
                        <eo:Bitmap Grid.Column="0" Source="{Binding Image}" Margin="2"></eo:Bitmap>
                        <TextBlock Grid.Column="1" Text="{Binding Name}" VerticalAlignment="Center" Margin="5"></TextBlock>
                    </Grid>
                </DataTemplate>
            </eo:ComboBox.ItemTemplate>
        </eo:ComboBox>    
    </StackPanel>
</Window>

The above code produces the following result: