Empty data template for DropDownList in Visual Web Developer

Question

With GridViews one can specify an emptydatatemplate to fill an area of a gridview with some description of why there is no data to display.

Can this be done with a drop-down list? I have an empty one which isn't populated until the user creates something for it to display, how can I prefill it with some data? I have tried manually adding a list item but the databinding overwrites it with nothing.

Answer 1

If you want to enter an empty field and have it selected, just do the following after you do your databind:

        ddMyDropDown.Items.Insert(0, new ListItem(String.Empty, String.Empty));
        ddMyDropDown.SelectedIndex = 0;