RadComboBox now provides complete XHTML 1.1 compliance. The HTML output that is generated by default is fully XHTML 1.1 compliant.

RadComboBox is "Level A" compliant (in accordance with the W3C Web Accessibility Guidelines 1.0). It also introduces certain features that satisfy the requirements of "Section 508" for software accessibility. As a result, the component can be used in US Federal Institutions and other organizations, which require software to be accessible to people with disabilities.

RadComboBox has full autocomplete support - while you type into the input area,  the combobox fires a server-side event that returns all the relative matches for the currently typed text.

RadComboBox can load data on demand based on the current value of the combobox input field. Whenever the state of the input changes, RadComboBox fires a server-side event with the current state of the input as a parameter.

You can embed any content inside a RadComboBox template, including HTML markup and ASP.NET server controls, as well as other third-party controls (and any control from the Telerik RadControls suite as well).

In compliance with Section 508 regulations, RadComboBox is fully navigable using the keyboard. RadComboBox can be accessed with the Tab Key as well as with an Access Key shortcut. You can use arrow keys to open and close the combobox and navigate through the items. Items can be selected with Space or Enter keys.

RadComboBox displays item tooltips which enables special accessibility readers like JAWS to pronounce the tooltip of the highlighted item.

• DataBinding: RadComboBox fully supports binding to collections, tables and datasets.
• Programmatic Binding: RadComboBox provides a rich and easy-to-use server-side API, so you can easily populate your combobox with any number and type of items.
• SQL Binding: You can easily bind RadComboBox to the result of any SQL query.
• XML String Binding: RadComboBox provides rich API for working with XML. You can load data from an XML static content file or you can directly load XML.

You can easily Add, Edit and Remove items in the Design Mode of VS.NET. RadComboBox items are also very easily customized by Template Editing in Visual Studio.

RadComboBox provides an extensive set of Server- and Client-Side events which allow for easy use and customization of the control.

RadComboBox provides full support for custom attributes both on the server and on the client. It is very easy to include an image in your combobox item, for example. 

RadComboBox contains a predefined set of CSS-based skins which allow for easy appearance customization. You can also create custom skins of your own.

You can easily embed RadComboBox inside any ASP.NET control supporting templates.

RadComboBox's dropdown can be displayed over windowed objects (ASP.NET dropdown lists and/or flash movies). In addition, RadComboBox is not rendered as a windowed object, therefore DHTML content can hover the combobox when needed.

You can use the built in ASP.NET validation with RadComboBox.

You can use any language with RadComboBox. Just make sure you've set the appropriate Html encoding (and XML encoding in case you are using XML Content Files).

RadComboBox provides full support for Right-to-Left languages.

RadComboBox supports automatic sorting (Ascending, Descending) based on the Text property of the control.

 

You can easily setup any number of instances of RadComboBox on the same page that interact with each other based on certain client-side or server-side events.

Developers can now define any table structure and it will be applied to all combobox items. The key benefit here is that this is achieved using templates. Table structures can be easily customized and modified on the go, without the need to recompile or code anything.
Multi-column mode supports all advanced AJAX features of the combo – load on demand, auto-complete, etc. Items loaded on demand are automatically formatted using the templates as well.

Headers are especially useful in multi-column mode (though they can be used in any other combo mode as well). You can use the header to assign column titles for each combo column. The header does not scroll when items go up/down and is always visible – end-users can easily associate column data to its respective column title in the header. Headers are also defined using templates and you can have any content there, even images.

You can now control whether end-users can enter text that is not predefined in any of the combobox items. All you have to do is set the AllowCustomText property. By default it is set to true, i.e. typing is allowed. If the AllowCustomText property is set to false the input for the combobox is restricted only to match the strings present in the combobox items.

RadComboBox now supports multiple autocomplete using any delimiter (";" , ",", etc.) just like in Microsoft Outlook^®.

For complex load-on-demand scenarios, when combobox is added dynamically to the page or is not initially visible, you can use ExternalCallBackPage. ExternalCallBackPage is a normal ASP.NET aspx page that contains only one instance of RadComboBox. The ID of this instance should match the ID of the combobox initiating the request. You can then wire the ItemsRequested event handler of the external combobox and write your custom logic, the same way you would do in the original page. Finally, set the ExternalCallBackPage property of the original combobox to the name of the callback (streamer) page. The path is relative to the current path of the parent page (e.g. no path needed if the streamer page is in the same folder - just the name of the file).