Question

How to Fill ASP.NET dropdown list control with colors

Asked by: geoffsweb

using ASP.NET C# ...

I am looking to fill a dropdown list with colors without having to hard code the color names in.  Is there a way to load the colors from some type of color palette object or something?  I'm looking for the names to appear in the dropdown, not the actual colors displaying in the dropdown.  Or I can settle for the a color palette to popup, like the calendar, to pick the color that way.  I just need to give the user option for color names.

Thanks in advance.

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Asked On
2007-12-07 at 10:47:49ID23009433
Tags

list

,

fill

,

how

Topics

Programming for ASP.NET

,

C# Programming Language

,

Microsoft Visual C#.Net

Participating Experts
2
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Answers

 

by: joex911Posted on 2007-12-07 at 11:16:13ID: 20429988

Hi, use the KnownColor enumeration:

KnownColor enumColor = new KnownColor();
Array Colors = Enum.GetValues(enumColor.GetType());
ArrayList ALColor = new ArrayList();
// This is to get rid of System Colors
foreach(object clr in Colors)
{
  if (!Color.FromKnownColor((KnownColor)clr).IsSystemColor)
  ALColor.Add(clr.ToString());
}
 
cboColor.DataSource = ALColor;
cboColor.DataBind();
                                              
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by: daniel_ballaPosted on 2007-12-07 at 11:18:40ID: 20430010

One way to do it would be to use reflection to read the members of the System.Drawing.Color structure.
This would be something like:

markup:
<asp:ListBox ID="listColor" runat="server" />

and the code to go with it:
PropertyInfo[] colors = typeof(System.Drawing.Color).GetProperties(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Static);
        foreach (PropertyInfo color in colors)
        {
            listColor.Items.Add(new ListItem(((System.Drawing.Color)color.GetValue(new System.Drawing.Color(), null)).Name));
        }

However, this is not perfect. First of all, you might want to change the colors at some point. Also, if let's say the framework version changes, you are not guaranteed that all the public static members of this structure will be just colors (that is if you consider "transparent" a color anyway).

The way that I would recommend is to define your own enumeration with the colors you want, such as:
public enum Color
{
    RED,
    YELLOW.
    etc
}

and then bind the enum to the listbox, such as:
listColor.DataSource = Enum.GetNames(typeof(Color));
listColor.DataBind();

This is the best performant way, and if gives you all the flexibility you need (you can use attributes to extend or filter).

 

by: geoffswebPosted on 2007-12-07 at 12:02:45ID: 20430351

both those work great... if I can sneak in another question here... now that I've written a color to the database, I retrieve the color and try to set the backcolor of a cell in a calendar control...

e.Cell.BackColor = row["CellColor"].ToString();
but I get this error:
Cannot implicitly convert type 'string' to 'System.Drawing.Color'

I tried casting it like this, but still got the error:
e.Cell.BackColor = (System.Drawing.Color)row["CellColor"].ToString();

 

by: joex911Posted on 2007-12-07 at 12:26:18ID: 20430520

Try:

System.Drawing.ColorConverter colConvert = new ColorConverter();
e.Cell.BackColor = (System.Drawing.Color)colConvert.ConvertFromString(row["CellColor"].ToString());

                                              
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by: geoffswebPosted on 2007-12-08 at 16:02:06ID: 20435570

PERFECT !!

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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