topic Re: formatting pane - dynamic dropdown - selected value in Custom Visuals Development Discussion

formatting pane - dynamic dropdown - selected value

lieselot_ve — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 09:50:31 GMT

I try to create a custom visual which behaves likes a matrix and where we can add 1 or more measures in the Values part of the visual.
In the format visual, I was able to add a Specific Column card with a dropdown which contains the measures placed in the Values part of my visual.

settings.ts

class SpecificColumnSettings extends FormattingSettingsCard {

series = new formattingSettings.ItemDropdown({

name: "series",

displayName: "Series",

items: [], // will be populated dynamically in visual.ts

value: { value: "", displayName: "" }

//value: undefined

});

but how can we get the selected value of this dropdown in visual.ts (update())? No matter what I try, it does not seem to remember the value selected. Does anyone have a working example for this?

Kind regards,

Lieselot

Re: formatting pane - dynamic dropdown - selected value

BeaBF — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 15:14:08 GMT

@lieselot_ve Hi!

To read the selected value from a dynamic ItemDropdown in the format pane, make sure you first populate the formatting model in update() and then access the property from the settings model.

Example:

this.formattingSettings =
this.formattingSettingsService.populateFormattingSettingsModel(
VisualSettingsModel,
options.dataViews?.[0]
);

const selectedSeries =
this.formattingSettings.specificColumn.series.value?.value;
 

If the dropdown keeps “forgetting” the selection, the usual causes are:

object/property names don’t exactly match capabilities.json
dropdown items are rebuilt without preserving the previous value
the selected value isn’t a stable key (use something like queryName, not display text)

Using a stable internal value and restoring it when repopulating the items typically fixes the issue.

BBF

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Re: formatting pane - dynamic dropdown - selected value

lieselot_ve — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 07:34:41 GMT

a working (small) example would be a great help because this const selectedSeries =
this.formattingSettings.specificColumn.series.value?.value; always return undefined in our case