While working with CRM 4.0, I used this trick to solve similar tasks. Today, I had to implement similar functionality and I decided to go the supported way – JavaScript + WebResources.
Create a html webresource with the following content (I called it xrm_picklist.htm):
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title></title>
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8" />
<style type="text/css">
body
{
font-family: Segoe UI, Tahoma, Arial;
background-color: #F6F8FA;
font-size: 11px;
}
select.ms-crm-SelectBox
{
width: 100%;
color: #000000;
font-size: 11px;
}
</style>
<script type="text/javascript" src="ClientGlobalContext.js.aspx"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
function OnLoadHandler() {
var data = GetGlobalContext().getQueryStringParameters()["data"];
var params = {};
var dataparts = data.split("|");
for (var i = 0; i < dataparts.length; i++) {
var parametersetting = dataparts[i].split("=");
params[parametersetting[0]] = parametersetting[1];
}
window.picklistValues = [];
window.sourceField = params["sourceField"];
document.getElementById("lblValues").innerHTML = params["label"];
window.setTimeout("window.picklistValues = window.parent." + params["getValuesFunction"] + "(); fillOptionset();", 100);
}
function fillOptionset() {
var selValues = document.getElementById("selValues");
var currentValue = window.parent.Xrm.Page.getAttribute(window.sourceField).getValue();
var addCurrentValue = true;
for (var i = 0; i < window.picklistValues.length; i++) {
var newOption = document.createElement('option');
newOption.text = window.picklistValues[i];
newOption.value = window.picklistValues[i];
if (currentValue != null && currentValue == window.picklistValues[i]) {
addCurrentValue = false;
newOption.setAttribute("selected", "selected");
}
selValues.add(newOption, null);
}
if (addCurrentValue && currentValue != null) {
var newOption = document.createElement('option');
newOption.text = currentValue;
newOption.value = currentValue;
newOption.setAttribute("selected", "selected");
selValues.add(newOption, selValues.options.length == 0 ? null : selValues.options[0]);
}
else {
var newOption = document.createElement('option');
newOption.text = "";
newOption.value = "";
if (currentValue == null) {
newOption.setAttribute("selected", "selected");
}
selValues.add(newOption, selValues.options.length == 0 ? null : selValues.options[0]);
}
selValues.onchange = function () {
window.parent.Xrm.Page.getAttribute(window.sourceField).setValue(this.value);
};
};
</script>
</head>
<body onload="OnLoadHandler()">
<table style="width: 100%; height: 100%;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td nowrap="nowrap">
<label id="lblValues" for="selValues">
</label>
</td>
<td width="100%">
<select id="selValues" class="ms-crm-SelectBox">
</select>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
Now embed your control into the form where you will use it:
Pay attention to the custom parameter passed to your webresource – getValuesFunction=XrmSolutions.getValues|sourceField=xrm_name|label=Dynamic Optionset
getValuesFunction – the name of the function that should be available in one of JS webresources of CRM form.
sourceField – schema name of the field to which the value selected in dropdown will be saved.
label – is the label that will be shown near the dropdown control.
Here is the code of JS Webresource that I used for a getValuesFunction:
if (typeof XrmSolutions == 'undefined') {
XrmSolutions = {
getValues: function () {
return ["Value 1", "Value 2", "Value 3"];
},
__namespace: true
};
};
In this case I used a static list, but you can use any kind of string array.
Here is the design with the form and webresource on it:
Form and JS webresource that contains method to fill picklist:
Save and publish the form. Here is demonstration of how this functionality works:
