Question: I guess this is simple, but i couldnot figure it out.

i have a dropdown list with values 

```
America
Asia
Europe

```

I need to the display the ddl as Select Type and when i click the dropdownlist to see the values in it, it should display the three values, but i should not use Select Type as a list item and it should not be displayed in the list. It should only be used as a default text in ddl.

Thanks,

Answer: 
Windows Forms? 

If you populate your combobox like this: 

```
        this.comboBox1.Items.Add("Select...");
        this.comboBox1.Items.Add("America");
        this.comboBox1.Items.Add("Asia");
        this.comboBox1.Items.Add("Yurrup");

```

Then, attach a DropDown event, to remove the first option on first drop down. 

```
    private void comboBox1_DropDown(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        if (comboBox1.Items[0].ToString() == "Select...")
        {
            comboBox1.Items.RemoveAt(0);
        }
    }

```
I would add the ListItem to the list with its text set to "Select Type" and its value set to an empty string. In the code behind when you're handling the list, you would programmatically handle the possibility of an empty string selected value.

So given

```
ddl.Items.Add(new ListItem("Select Type", string.Empty));
ddl.Items.Add(new ListItem("America", "America"));
ddl.Items.Add(new ListItem("Asia", "Asia"));
ddl.Items.Add(new ListItem("Europe", "Europe"));

```

You'd handle it like

```
if (ddl.SelectedValue != string.Empty)
{
    // do what you need to do
}
else
{
    // OK to ignore? re-prompt user? etc.
}

```