RadMultiColumnComboBox Object

Updated on Mar 2, 2026

This article lists the client-side API of RadMultiColumnComboBox and how to use it.

To use the API, you must first get a reference to the control's client-side object. For example:

JavaScript

var rmccbObject = $find("<%=RadMultiColumnComboBox1.ClientID %>");

RadMultiColumnComboBox is a server-side wrapper over the Kendo UI MultiColumnComboBox Widget. Thus, it exposes the API of the underlying Kendo widget. To get a reference to the Kendo widget instance, you can do either of the following:

• Use the get_kendoWidget() method of the MS AJAX wrapper:

  JavaScript

    var rmccbObject  = $find("<%=RadMultiColumnComboBox1.ClientID %>"); //the standard script control object
    var kendoMccbm = rmccbObject.get_kendoWidget(); //the Kendo widget

• Get the Kendo Widget in its usual way. Make sure to use the $telerik._kendo.jQuery reference that has the Kendo widget data:

  JavaScript

    var kendoMccbm = $telerik._kendo.jQuery("#<%=RadMultiColumnComboBox1.ClientID %>").data("kendoMultiColumnComboBox"); //the jQuery selector must get the RadMultiColumnComboBox1 wrapper span element

As of the 2026 Q1 release, Kendo jQuery widget plugins and data are registered on $telerik._kendo.jQuery — a different jQuery instance from $telerik.$. If you use $telerik.$ with .data("kendoXxx"), it will return undefined. Always use $telerik._kendo.jQuery when accessing the underlying Kendo widget via the .data() method. The recommended approach, however, is to use the get_kendoWidget() method shown above.

In addition to using the Kendo method directly, you can also use their wrappers that follow the MS AJAX convention through the RadMultiColumnComboBox client object.

Table1: Client-side methods exposed by the MS AJAX RadMultiColumnComboBox object

Name	Parameters	Return Type	Description
close	none	none	Closes the dropdown.
destroy	none	none	Destroys the underlying Kendo widget (calls its destroy method). Once you call it, you will not be able to use the widget or control.
focus	none	none	Focuses the input.
get_dataItem	Number	object	Returns the data item for the corresponding index. If no index is provided, the data item for the selected item will be returned.
get_filter	none	string	Returns the filtering method used to determine the suggestions for the current value.
get_items	none	Array	Returns an array of the DOM <li> elements, which correspond to the data items from the Kendo UI DataSource of the widget.
get_kendoWidget	none	object	Returns a reference to the underlying Kendo MultiColumnComboBox widget.
get_readOnly	none	Boolean	Returns whether the input is readonly and typing is not allowed.
get_selected	none	Number	Returns the index of the selected item. If custom value is entered, returns -1.
get_text	none	string	Returns the current text.
get_value	none	string	Returns the current value.
open	none	none	Opens the dropdown.
refresh	none	none	Refresh the popup by rendering all items again.
search	string	none	Searches the data source for the provided value and displays any matches as suggestions.
set_dataSource	object	none	Sets the dataSource of the widget and rebinds it. Can be an actual kendo.data.DataSource object or an array of object literals.
set_enabled	Boolean	none	Enables or disables the widget if you pass true or false respectively.
set_filter	string	none	Sets the filter setting of the underlying widget. Can be startswith, endswith, eq and contains. Pass none to disable filtering.
set_readOnly	Boolean	none	Sets whether the input is readonly and typing is disabled.
set_selected	object	none	Sets the new selected item. See the widget's select method for more details on the possible arguments you can pass and its behavior.
set_text	string	none	Sets the text. See the underlying text method for more details on its behavior.
set_value	string	none	Sets the value. See the underlying value method for more details on its behavior.
suggest	string	none	Sets the value of the widget to the specified argument and visually selects the text.
toggle	none	none	Opens or closes the dropdown depending on its current state.

See Also

• Live Demo - RadMultiColumnComboBox Client-side API

• RadMultiColumnComboBox Client-side Events