Multimedia Designs .NET

ASP.NET RadioButtonList Control

The Radio Button List control is used to present options for your user to choose from but only allow them to select one option from the group. Think of using a radiobuttonlist control when you want to get an either/ or answer from your user based on a provided selection of options.  You can either define the available options using the .text property of each button in the list or you can programmically present the options to a datasource that you define and then bind the radio button control to the datasource.

You can then program a procedure (using Visual Basic or C#) to perform an action based on the selection the user provided. If you have a small form like the one below and want an immediate response once the user has made a selection then set AutoPostBack = "true".  But if you have the control on a form with many other controls then you want to wait until the submit button has been clicked before you preform the action to respond based on the answer the user provided. When this is the case then you will look for the .checked property to get the results. 

RadioButtonList Control with AutoPostBack = "true"

The RadioBoxList control is used to group the questions. A user can only select 1 radio button per group.  Below is an example of when you might use a radio button control.

Below is the code to create the form above.

ASP.NET

    
<asp:RadioButtonList ID="radioSizes" runat="server" 
          RepeatDirection="Horizontal" AutoPostBack="True" >
          
<asp:ListItem>Small</asp:ListItem>
<asp:ListItem>Medium</asp:ListItem>
<asp:ListItem>Large</asp:ListItem>
<asp:ListItem>Extra-Large</asp:ListItem>

<asp:RadioButtonList>

<asp:Label ID="lblPrice" style="color:green;" runat="server" Text="Label" />
    
    

VB.NET

    
 Protected Sub radioSizes_SelectedIndexChanged(ByVal sender As Object,
   ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles radioSizes.SelectedIndexChanged 

  Dim sizeSelected As String = radioSizes.SelectedValue 
  Dim showPrice As String = "" 

  Select Case sizeSelected 
       Case "Small" 
           showPrice = "$5.95"
       Case "Medium" 
           showPrice = "$6.95" 
       Case "Large" 
            showPrice = "$7.9
       Case "Extra-Large" 
            showPrice = "$8.95" 
  End Select 

      lblPrice.Text = showPrice 

 End Sub    
    

You can hand type in all of the items or you can "bind" your control to a DataSource.