I want to populate a WINDOWS listbox with a list of items AND values, where the values are different from the items. In the wonderful world of web programming, I would do something like this:

dim liName as New ListItem("Ron",1)
lstNames.items.add(liName)

For some bizarre reason only MS can explain, ListItem doesn't exist in the WINDOWS IDE. So how do I do this in a WINDOWS application?

I believe this is because you can bind anything to a list item in a win forms app. In the web, it can only be a text based item name and item value (being rendered to HTML). In win forms, it can be anything under System.Object. You can specify what property of the object to use as the displayed value. I'm not a winforms expert, but thats how I understand it to work.

-Peter
compiledthoughts.com

But not evey bit of data is so complex that binding is required. I just have a short, variable list of Item/Value pairs that are being generated on the fly. It seems like a lot unnecessary work to have to build something that can be bound to this control in Windows when it's so simple on the Web (and it has to be first for me to admit I've actually found something that's easier to do on the Web!)

I note that the listbox takes an "object". Is there some object not called ListItem in the Windows world that the listbox will accept that allows me to specify a both a item and value?

Nevermind. I've developed a work around to this screwy limitation of Windows .NET by putting my value before the item ("1: Ron"). It looks like crap and I also had to write special code to extract the stupid key, but I don't have time to figure out the "right" way to do this in Windows.

Thanks, MS, for another half-baked .NET object!

I'm sorry that you feel that this is a screwy limitation and half-backed object. I think it is quite the opposite. The way the win forms controls are set up is far more flexible than the ASP.NET counterparts. Of course, this comes with an added complexity.

You might take a look at the docs for the DisplayMember property of the listbox:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.listcontrol.displaymember(VS. 71).aspx

I think you will find what you need in there. By default, the listbox control will call the ToString() method of each list member and show the result in the listbox. You can create another property to emit exactly what you like for the display output. Also, you can specify a particular property for the value of the item. This should give you all the flexibility you need to reach your goals.

As far as the simple object you are looking for, you might try the DictionaryEntry class:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.collections.dictionaryentry_members(VS.71). aspx

That is basically just a key/value pair. The key and value properties are of System.Object type so you'll still need to cast them when you want to consume them. Later versions of .NET have added some typed and generic versions to provide strong typing of the entry.

-Peter
compiledthoughts.com