Bind drop down to enum in external assembly

Hi Andy,

For the text field (I'm assuming your page type field is text, isn't it?) you can select Form control: Enum selector in the page type fields configuration. Then, further down this form you'll have Enum assembly name and Type fields to specify. Kentico withdraws all enums registered within the application. I think to include options from the external library it should be enough to reference it in your code so that Kentico can see it in application domain.

Hi Dmitry,

Thanks for your answer, it's almost what I need! I found that I can also add a default item to the drop down "Select one..." under "Special items" in the advanced section of the field configuration.

However the values in the list are displayed with the full enum name, eg: Color.BlanchedAlmond and I'd prefer friendly names eg: "Blanched Almond".

From decompiling the Kentico code it looks like there is a EnumStringRepresentationAttribute which could be added which should control the friendly name, however these enums are coming from an assembly which has no Kentico dependencies, so I can't add that custom attribute.

I've tried adding the standard System.ComponentModel attributes onto the enum eg: [Display(Name="Blanched Almond"), Description("Blanched Almond")] but neither seem to be taken into account.

Any ideas how to get the friendly names of the enum to appear?

thanks, Andy

In case anyone else is looking, here is what I ended up doing. I created a control extender, which alters the values of the drop down later in the lifecycle, if the enum values have a Display(Name = "xxx") attribute. Then use this control extender as the form control for the required field.

public class EnumSelectorExtender : ControlExtender<CMSFormControls_System_EnumSelector>
{
    private static readonly Dictionary<string, Dictionary<string, string>> DisplayNameLookup = new Dictionary<string, Dictionary<string, string>>();

    private string _typeKey;

    public override void OnInit()
    {
        Control.Load += ControlOnLoad;
    }

    private void ControlOnLoad(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        // Create a cached lookup table of the enum friendly names.
        _typeKey = $"{Control.AssemblyName}.{Control.TypeName}";

        EnsureDisplayNameLookup();

        // Replace the values of the dropdown with friendly names if possible.
        foreach (ListItem li in Control.CurrentSelector.Items)
        {
            if (DisplayNameLookup[_typeKey].TryGetValue(li.Text, out var displayName)) li.Text = displayName;
        }
    }

    private void EnsureDisplayNameLookup()
    {
        if (!DisplayNameLookup.ContainsKey(_typeKey))
        {
            DisplayNameLookup.Add(_typeKey, new Dictionary<string, string>());
            var type = TryGetEnumType(Control.AssemblyName, Control.TypeName);
            if (type != null)
            {
                DisplayNameLookup[_typeKey] = type.GetFields(BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.Public)
                    .ToDictionary(f => $"{type.Name}.{f.Name}",
                        f => f.GetCustomAttribute<DisplayAttribute>()?.Name);
            }
        }
    }

    private Type TryGetEnumType(string assemblyname, string typeName)
    {
        if (!String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(assemblyname) && !String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(typeName))
        {
            var type = ClassHelper.GetClassType(assemblyname, typeName);

            if ((type != null) && type.IsEnum)
            {
                return type;
            }
        }

        return null;
    }
}

This was after digging into the code for CMSFormControls_System_EnumSelector to see how it works. It would be nice if that control took notice of the standard System.CompononentModel.Display attribute out of the box.

Hey guys,

Was Andy's solution the only option here? How do we implement that Andy? Like, how does that extender actually get called/used?

Hi Tandy,

You add the control extender and register it like any other custom form control. Assign it to the field in a page type and configure it under the Advanced dropdown under "Editing control settings".

Try the Kentico docs for some more info on this:

https://docs.xperience.io/k11/custom-development/developing-form-controls/example-developing-custom-form-controls

Andy

Andy