When data binding to a DropDownList control in ASP.NET, there are in many cases when you want the first selection of the control to be blank or say something like "<please select value>". In part one of this tip (back in 2003), I wrote that you could just add an empty row to the DataSet. In VS 2005 and the new way of data binding that I usually do to web services, this is more difficult. So here is another solution just using code in your ASP.NET code.

 Protected Sub DropDownList_DataBound(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyControl1.DataBound, MyControl2.DataBound

      DirectCast(sender, DropDownList).Items.Insert(0, String.Empty)

 End Sub

The Insert method must be called after the DropDownList has been data bound.

Tip Submitted By: David McCarter