Combobox filtering

[Edward]

 Does combobox/dropdowns come with client side filtering built in?  Should one use comboboxes and not dropdowns for this?

Thnks.

[Marin Bratanov]

Hello Edward, 

The combo filters the items from its data source on the client by default. You can see how this works in the following demos by monitoring the network requests for data:

• client filtering will request all data when the page initializes and then filter on the client: https://demos.telerik.com/aspnet-core/combobox/clientfiltering.
• server filtering will request data when the user types in the minimum required symbols and will do new requests when the input changes: https://demos.telerik.com/aspnet-core/combobox/serverfiltering.

You can do this both with combo boxes and with dropdownlists. The difference is that the filter textbox in the dropdownlist is in the dropdown itself as it does not allow custom values (while the combo box allows them, which is why it has an input immediately available).

 Here are the corresponding demos for the dropdown list widget:

• client filtering: https://demos.telerik.com/aspnet-core/combobox/serverfiltering
• server filtering: https://demos.telerik.com/aspnet-core/dropdownlist/serverfiltering. This demo does not have AutoBind(false) set and so it will request the data initially, unlike the combo box demo above.

So, you can do this with both widgets and it is up to your project requirements to choose between them.

Regards,
Marin Bratanov
Progress Telerik