ComboBox: Adding Text and Value to an Item (no Binding Source)

Question

You must create your own class type and override the ToString() method to return the text you want. Here is a simple example of a class you can use:

public class ComboboxItem
{
    public string Text { get; set; }
    public object Value { get; set; }

    public override string ToString()
    {
        return Text;
    }
}

The following is a simple example of its usage:

private void Test()
{
    ComboboxItem item = new ComboboxItem();
    item.Text = "Item text1";
    item.Value = 12;

    comboBox1.Items.Add(item);

    comboBox1.SelectedIndex = 0;

    MessageBox.Show((comboBox1.SelectedItem as ComboboxItem).Value.ToString());
}

// Bind combobox to dictionary
Dictionary<string, string>test = new Dictionary<string, string>();
        test.Add("1", "dfdfdf");
        test.Add("2", "dfdfdf");
        test.Add("3", "dfdfdf");
        comboBox1.DataSource = new BindingSource(test, null);
        comboBox1.DisplayMember = "Value";
        comboBox1.ValueMember = "Key";

// Get combobox selection (in handler)
string value = ((KeyValuePair<string, string>)comboBox1.SelectedItem).Value;

You can use anonymous class like this:

comboBox.DisplayMember = "Text";
comboBox.ValueMember = "Value";

comboBox.Items.Add(new { Text = "report A", Value = "reportA" });
comboBox.Items.Add(new { Text = "report B", Value = "reportB" });
comboBox.Items.Add(new { Text = "report C", Value = "reportC" });
comboBox.Items.Add(new { Text = "report D", Value = "reportD" });
comboBox.Items.Add(new { Text = "report E", Value = "reportE" });

UPDATE: Although above code will properly display in combo box, you will not be able to use SelectedValue or SelectedText properties of ComboBox. To be able to use those, bind combo box as below:

comboBox.DisplayMember = "Text";
comboBox.ValueMember = "Value";

var items = new[] { 
    new { Text = "report A", Value = "reportA" }, 
    new { Text = "report B", Value = "reportB" }, 
    new { Text = "report C", Value = "reportC" },
    new { Text = "report D", Value = "reportD" },
    new { Text = "report E", Value = "reportE" }
};

comboBox.DataSource = items;

You should use dynamic object to resolve combobox item in run-time.

comboBox.DisplayMember = "Text";
comboBox.ValueMember = "Value";

comboBox.Items.Add(new { Text = "Text", Value = "Value" });

(comboBox.SelectedItem as dynamic).Value

You can use Dictionary Object instead of creating a custom class for adding text and value in a Combobox.

Add keys and values in a Dictionary Object:

Dictionary<string, string> comboSource = new Dictionary<string, string>();
comboSource.Add("1", "Sunday");
comboSource.Add("2", "Monday");

Bind the source Dictionary object to Combobox:

comboBox1.DataSource = new BindingSource(comboSource, null);
comboBox1.DisplayMember = "Value";
comboBox1.ValueMember = "Key";

Retrieve Key and value:

string key = ((KeyValuePair<string,string>)comboBox1.SelectedItem).Key;
string value = ((KeyValuePair<string,string>)comboBox1.SelectedItem).Value;

Full Source : Combobox Text nd Value

This is one of the ways that just came to mind:

combo1.Items.Add(new ListItem("Text", "Value"))

And to change text of or value of an item, you can do it like this:

combo1.Items[0].Text = 'new Text';

combo1.Items[0].Value = 'new Value';

There is no class called ListItem in Windows Forms. It only exists in ASP.NET, so you will need to write your own class before using it, the same as @Adam Markowitz did in his answer.

Also check these pages, they may help:

• How add an item to a combobox

• How to: Add and Remove Items from a Windows Forms ComboBox, ListBox, or CheckedListBox Control

Don't know if this will work for the situation given in the original post (never mind the fact that this is two years later), but this example works for me:

Hashtable htImageTypes = new Hashtable();
htImageTypes.Add("JPEG", "*.jpg");
htImageTypes.Add("GIF", "*.gif");
htImageTypes.Add("BMP", "*.bmp");

foreach (DictionaryEntry ImageType in htImageTypes)
{
    cmbImageType.Items.Add(ImageType);
}
cmbImageType.DisplayMember = "key";
cmbImageType.ValueMember = "value";

To read your value back out, you'll have to cast the SelectedItem property to a DictionaryEntry object, and you can then evaluate the Key and Value properties of that. For instance:

DictionaryEntry deImgType = (DictionaryEntry)cmbImageType.SelectedItem;
MessageBox.Show(deImgType.Key + ": " + deImgType.Value);