Getting Started with ASP.NET Core DropDownList Control

20 Feb 20254 minutes to read

This section briefly explains about how to include ASP.NET Core DropDownList control in your ASP.NET Core application using Visual Studio.

Prerequisites

System requirements for ASP.NET Core controls

Create ASP.NET Core web application with Razor pages

Install ASP.NET Core package in the application

To add ASP.NET Core controls in the application, open the NuGet package manager in Visual Studio (Tools → NuGet Package Manager → Manage NuGet Packages for Solution), search for Syncfusion.EJ2.AspNet.Core and then install it. Alternatively, you can utilize the following package manager command to achieve the same.

Install-Package Syncfusion.EJ2.AspNet.Core -Version 29.1.33

NOTE

Syncfusion® ASP.NET Core controls are available in nuget.org. Refer to NuGet packages topic to learn more about installing NuGet packages in various OS environments. The Syncfusion.EJ2.AspNet.Core NuGet package has dependencies, Newtonsoft.Json for JSON serialization and Syncfusion.Licensing for validating Syncfusion® license key.

Add Syncfusion® ASP.NET Core Tag Helper

Open ~/Pages/_ViewImports.cshtml file and import the Syncfusion.EJ2 TagHelper.

@addTagHelper *, Syncfusion.EJ2

Add stylesheet and script resources

Here, the theme and script is referred using CDN inside the <head> of ~/Pages/Shared/_Layout.cshtml file as follows,

<head>
    ...
    <!-- Syncfusion ASP.NET Core controls styles -->
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/29.1.33/fluent.css" />
    <!-- Syncfusion ASP.NET Core controls scripts -->
    <script src="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/29.1.33/dist/ej2.min.js"></script>
</head>

NOTE

Checkout the Themes topic to learn different ways (CDN, NPM package, and CRG) to refer styles in ASP.NET Core application, and to have the expected appearance for Syncfusion® ASP.NET Core controls.

NOTE

Checkout the Adding Script Reference topic to learn different approaches for adding script references in your ASP.NET Core application.

Register Syncfusion® Script Manager

Also, register the script manager <ejs-script> at the end of <body> in the ASP.NET Core application as follows.

<body>
    ...
    <!-- Syncfusion ASP.NET Core Script Manager -->
    <ejs-scripts></ejs-scripts>
</body>

Add ASP.NET Core DropDownList control

Now, add the Syncfusion® ASP.NET Core DropDownList tag helper in ~/Pages/Index.cshtml page.

@{
    ...
    var data = new string[] { "Badminton", "Basketball", "Cricket", "Football", "Golf", "Gymnastics", "Hockey", "Tennis" };
}

<ejs-dropdownlist id="games" dataSource="data"> </ejs-dropdownlist>

Press Ctrl+F5 (Windows) or ⌘+F5 (macOS) to run the app. Then, the Syncfusion® ASP.NET Core DropDownList control will be rendered in the default web browser.

ASP.NET Core DropDownList Control

Binding data source

After initialization, populate the DropDownList with data using the dataSource property. Here, an array of string values is passed to the DropDownList component.

@{
    ...
    var data = new string[] { "Badminton", "Basketball", "Cricket", "Football", "Golf", "Gymnastics", "Hockey", "Tennis" };
}

<ejs-dropdownlist id="games" dataSource="data" placeholder="Select a game" popupHeight="220px">
</ejs-dropdownlist>

Configure the popup list

By default, the width of the popup list automatically adjusts according to the DropDownList input element’s width, and the height of the popup list has ‘300px’.

The height and width of the popup list can also be customized using the popupHeight and popupWidth properties respectively.

@{
    ...
    var data = new string[] { "Badminton", "Basketball", "Cricket", "Football", "Golf", "Gymnastics", "Hockey", "Tennis" };
}

<ejs-dropdownlist id="games" dataSource="data" popupWidth="300px" placeholder="Select a game" popupHeight="220px">
</ejs-dropdownlist>

NOTE

View Sample in GitHub.

See also