title: C# bind to comboBox without selectedItem and text population
body: <p>My question is "Is there a way to bind data to a comboBox without the selectedItem and text values being changed / populated?" (I want the comboBox to stay blank)</p>
  
  <p>This is an EXAMPLE of what I am doing:</p>
  
  <pre><code>        Dictionary&lt;int,string&gt; test = new Dictionary&lt;int,string&gt;();
          test.Add(1, "Company1");
          test.Add(2, "Company2");
          test.Add(3, "Company3");
          test.Add(4, "Company4");
          test.Add(5, "Company5");
          test.Add(6, "Company6");
  
          var list = test.Select(x =&gt; new { CompanyName = x.Value }).ToList();
  
          comboBox1.DataSource = list;
          comboBox1.DisplayMember = "CompanyName";
          comboBox1.ValueMember = "CompanyName";
          comboBox1.SelectedItem = null;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>If you run this code, it works fine, because it loads so fast, it looks like the comboBox stays blank.</p>
  
  <p>However, if you step through the code, you will see that the SelectedItem and Text values get changed when the DataSource is assigned to "list".</p>
  
  <p>My actual LINQ query is quite a bit bigger, and thus slower to load.  My comboBox "flashes" the Text value before it gets cleared out, and I want to remove this ugly flash.</p>
  
  <p>I have tried different combinations of setting SelectedItem and Text values to null (or "") before and after the DataSource assignment, but I cannot get the "flash" to go away.</p>
  
  <p>Any suggestions are greatly appreciated! =)</p>
  
  <p><b>EDIT:</b> I also want to add that this only happens on the initial form load... If I change the bindingsource and then reset back to my original (running the exact same code again), it doesn't "flash"...  Not sure if this helps or makes a difference...</p>