ComboBox's SelectedItem in MVC App

[danni]

Okay, I think I'm stuck. I have ComboBox that its initial value is set from the controller but the combo's value always blank.

Controller :

Function Form() As ActionResult
	ViewData("SEX") = "F"
	Return View()
End Function

View :

<ext:ComboBox runat="server" ID="cbSEX" FieldLabel="SEX">
	<Items>
		<ext:ListItem Text ="Male" Value="M" />
		<ext:ListItem Text ="Female" Value="F" />
	</Items>
	<SelectedItem  Value='<%#  ViewData("SEX") %>'  AutoDataBind="true" />
</ext:ComboBox>

Anyway, it works fine if I set the selecteditem manually, e.g.

<SelectedItem  Value="M" />

Anybody here have any idea?

[danni]

I guess it's bug. My workaround for this issue is to set the combo via javascript or server code (even its MVC app) :p

[lionelhutz]

I should probably make this a new question, but...

How can you set the combobox programmatically in C#? I can't set it using .SelectedItem or .SelectedIndex (as those are both get only), so how can I set it?

[danni]

cbSEX.SelectedItem.Value = "F"
' or
cbSEX.SelectedItem.Text = "Female"

[lionelhutz]

Thank you very much! I guess I would expect that to change the value and change the text, but not select the item that has that value or text. That's probably because I'm used to the asp:dropdownlist.