Well it works ok unless there is a postback caused by another control. Inside my datalist, I have a gridview and a formview.

Datalist Item Template (SectionHeadAPI)
          GridView
                     FormView

If I click the Select in the datagrid, it loads the data into the formview for updating. But the side effect is that all the Section Head items are then closed (+) and the text property of the dnn:sectionhead (which was set dynamically by the datalist) is gone.

How should one handle this situation? I set enableviewstate on my <dnn:sectionhead> but it is not persisting.

Ok. I managed to get around the collapsing problem by putting the id and runat=server in a div tag instead of a table tag.

<ItemTemplate>
 <dnn:sectionhead id='dnnSection' runat="server"
      CssClass="SubHead" IncludeRule="true" IsExpanded="false"
      Section='section'
      ResourceKey='<%# Eval("CategoryName") %>'
      EnableViewState="true"
      Text='<%# Eval("CategoryName") %>'
      Visible="true" />
<div id="section" runat=server>
        <table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" width="100%">
          <tr>
                <td>
                    <asp:Label ID="CategoryIdLabel" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("CategoryId") %>' Visible="False"></asp:Label>
                    <asp:Label ID="CategoryDescLabel" runat="server" CssClass="normal" Text='<%# Eval("CategoryDesc") %>'></asp:Label>
                </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td valign="top">   
                  <asp:GridView ....
</div>
                   <asp:FormView .....

The problem that still persists is the Text property of the section head not being set again on the select event of the gridview.

This is what I found when viewing the source:

Before:
<div>
<input type="image" name="dnnSection:imgIcon" id="dnnSection_imgIcon" tabindex="-1" title="Maximize" max_icon="/ErikDev/images/plus.gif" min_icon="/ErikDev/images/minus.gif" src="/ErikDev/images/plus.gif" alt="Maximize" border="0" onclick="if (__dnn_SectionMaxMin(this, 'dnn_ctr369_FRSAdmin_dlCategories__ctl0_section')) return false;" language="javascript" />&nbsp;
<span id="dnnSection_lblTitle" class="SubHead">Carpentry</span>
</div>

After:

<div>
<input type="image" name="dnnSection:imgIcon" id="dnnSection_imgIcon" tabindex="-1" title="Minimize" max_icon="/ErikDev/images/plus.gif" min_icon="/ErikDev/images/minus.gif" src="/ErikDev/images/minus.gif" alt="Minimize" border="0" onclick="if (__dnn_SectionMaxMin(this, 'dnn_ctr369_FRSAdmin_dlCategories__ctl0_section')) return false;" language="javascript" />&nbsp;
<span id="dnnSection_lblTitle" class="SubHead"></span>
</div>

 So I assume that since I set the Text property to a bound value, that when the select event is called, it won't create a rebind of the data, thus no text.