Retrieving Data of a combobox item -Telerik MVC - asp.net-mvc

Question

my application is asp.net MVC, I am using Telerik MVC Combobox, using ViewData, I send items as:
people.Add(new Person { Id = 1, Name = "John", viewed = true });
<% Html.Telerik().ComboBox()
.Name("ComboBox")
.BindTo(new SelectList((IEnumerable<Person>)ViewData["people"], "Id", "Name"))
.ClientEvents(events => events.OnChange("ComboBox_onChange")
.OnLoad("ComboBox_onLoad")
.OnOpen("ComboBox_OnOpen"))
.Render();
%>
I can get the text of a specific item using:
var item = combobox.dropDown.$items.eq(0);
alert(item.text());
Any idea how I can get the data of this item to check if the value of viewed if it is true of false.
I tried:
alert(item.Value.split('|'));
but got this error: Unable to get value of the property 'split': object is null or undefined
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Here is the Client API documentation
Basically you need to get a reference to the combobox plugin first:
var combo = $('#ComboBox').data('tComboBox');
Then you can call whatever method you need:
alert( combo.value() );
EDIT:
Your combobox is currently bound to a SelectList where the Value is Person.Id and Text is Person.Name. The "viewed" property is not stored anywhere. You could include it as part of the Value, retrieve the value as I described above, and then split() to get the "viewed" part:
Html.Telerik().ComboBox()
.Items(items =>
{
// pseudo-code
foreach (person)
items.Add().Text(person.Name).Value(person.Id + "_" + person.Viewed)
})
...