I have the following view model
public class ProjectVM
{
....
[Display(Name = "Category")]
[Required(ErrorMessage = "Please select a category")]
public int CategoryID { get; set; }
public IEnumerable<SelectListItem> CategoryList { get; set; }
....
}
and the following controller method to create a new Project and assign a Category
public ActionResult Create()
{
ProjectVM model = new ProjectVM
{
CategoryList = new SelectList(db.Categories, "ID", "Name")
}
return View(model);
}
public ActionResult Create(ProjectVM model)
{
if (!ModelState.IsValid)
{
return View(model);
}
// Save and redirect
}
and in the view
#model ProjectVM
....
#using (Html.BeginForm())
{
....
#Html.LabelFor(m => m.CategoryID)
#Html.DropDownListFor(m => m.CategoryID, Model.CategoryList, "-Please select-")
#Html.ValidationMessageFor(m => m.CategoryID)
....
<input type="submit" value="Create" />
}
The view displays correctly but when submitting the form, I get the following error message
InvalidOperationException: The ViewData item that has the key 'CategoryID' is of type 'System.Int32' but must be of type 'IEnumerable<SelectListItem>'.
The same error occurs using the #Html.DropDownList() method, and if I pass the SelectList using a ViewBag or ViewData.
The error means that the value of CategoryList is null (and as a result the DropDownListFor() method expects that the first parameter is of type IEnumerable<SelectListItem>).
You are not generating an input for each property of each SelectListItem in CategoryList (and nor should you) so no values for the SelectList are posted to the controller method, and therefore the value of model.CategoryList in the POST method is null. If you return the view, you must first reassign the value of CategoryList, just as you did in the GET method.
public ActionResult Create(ProjectVM model)
{
if (!ModelState.IsValid)
{
model.CategoryList = new SelectList(db.Categories, "ID", "Name"); // add this
return View(model);
}
// Save and redirect
}
To explain the inner workings (the source code can be seen here)
Each overload of DropDownList() and DropDownListFor() eventually calls the following method
private static MvcHtmlString SelectInternal(this HtmlHelper htmlHelper, ModelMetadata metadata,
string optionLabel, string name, IEnumerable<SelectListItem> selectList, bool allowMultiple,
IDictionary<string, object> htmlAttributes)
which checks if the selectList (the second parameter of #Html.DropDownListFor()) is null
// If we got a null selectList, try to use ViewData to get the list of items.
if (selectList == null)
{
selectList = htmlHelper.GetSelectData(name);
usedViewData = true;
}
which in turn calls
private static IEnumerable<SelectListItem> GetSelectData(this HtmlHelper htmlHelper, string name)
which evaluates the the first parameter of #Html.DropDownListFor() (in this case CategoryID)
....
o = htmlHelper.ViewData.Eval(name);
....
IEnumerable<SelectListItem> selectList = o as IEnumerable<SelectListItem>;
if (selectList == null)
{
throw new InvalidOperationException(String.Format(CultureInfo.CurrentCulture,
MvcResources.HtmlHelper_WrongSelectDataType,
name, o.GetType().FullName, "IEnumerable<SelectListItem>"));
}
Because property CategoryID is typeof int, it cannot be cast to IEnumerable<SelectListItem> and the exception is thrown (which is defined in the MvcResources.resx file as)
<data name="HtmlHelper_WrongSelectDataType" xml:space="preserve">
<value>The ViewData item that has the key '{0}' is of type '{1}' but must be of type '{2}'.</value>
</data>
according to stephens (user3559349) answer, this can be useful:
#Html.DropDownListFor(m => m.CategoryID, Model.CategoryList ?? new List<SelectListItem>(), "-Please select-")
or in ProjectVM:
public class ProjectVM
{
public ProjectVM()
{
CategoryList = new List<SelectListItem>();
}
...
}
Most Likely Caused some sort of error redirecting to your page and you not initializing your model's drop down lists again.
Make sure that you initialize your drop downs in either the model's constructor or every time before you send said model to the page.
Otherwise you will need to maintain the state of the drop down lists either through the view bag or through the hidden value helpers.
OK, the poster's canned answer neatly explained why the error occurred, but not how to get it to work. I'm not sure that's really an answer, but it did point me in the right direction.
I ran into the same issue and found a slick way to resolve it. I'll try to capture that here. Disclaimer - I work on web pages once a year or so and really don't know what I'm doing most of the time. This answer should in no way be considered an "expert" answer, but it does the job with little work...
Given that I have some data object (most likely a Data Transfer Object) that I want to use a drop-down list to supply valid values for a field, like so:
public class MyDataObject
{
public int id;
public string StrValue;
}
Then the ViewModel looks like this:
public class MyDataObjectVM
{
public int id;
public string StrValue;
public List<SectListItem> strValues;
}
The real problem here, as #Stephen so eloquently described above, is the select list isn't populated on the POST method in the controller. So your controller methods would look like this:
// GET
public ActionResult Create()
{
var dataObjectVM = GetNewMyDataObjectVM();
return View(dataObjectVM); // I use T4MVC, don't you?
}
private MyDataObjectVM GetNewMyDataObjectVM(MyDataObjectVM model = null)
{
return new MyDataObjectVM
{
int id = model?.Id ?? 0,
string StrValue = model?.StrValue ?? "",
var strValues = new List<SelectListItem>
{
new SelectListItem {Text = "Select", Value = ""},
new SelectListITem {Text = "Item1", Value = "Item1"},
new SelectListItem {Text = "Item2", Value = "Item2"}
};
};
}
// POST
public ActionResult Create(FormCollection formValues)
{
var dataObject = new MyDataObject();
try
{
UpdateModel(dataObject, formValues);
AddObjectToObjectStore(dataObject);
return RedirectToAction(Actions.Index);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
// fill in the drop-down list for the view model
var dataObjectVM = GetNewMyDataObjectVM();
ModelState.AddModelError("", ex.Message);
return View(dataObjectVM);
)
}
There you have it. This is NOT working code, I copy/pasted and edited to make it simple, but you get the idea. If the data members in both the original data model and the derived view model have the same name, UpdateModel() does an awesome job of filling in just the right data for you from the FormCollection values.
I'm posting this here so I can find the answer when I inevitably run into this issue again -- hopefully it will help someone else out as well.
I had the same problem, I was getting an invalid ModelState when I tried to post the form. For me, this was caused by setting CategoryId to int, when I changed it to string the ModelState was valid and the Create method worked as expected.
In my case the first ID in my list was zero, once I changed the ID to start from 1, it worked.
Related
This is how I populate dropdownlist and create html element;
AccountController:
public ActionResult Index()
{
ViewBag.Towns = new SelectList(_skrsService.GetTowns(), "Value", "Text", 1);
return View();
}
...
public List<SelectListItem> GetTowns()
{
var list = UnitOfWork.Repository<SkrsIl>().OrderBy(x => x.Adi).Select(x => new SelectListItem()
{
Text = x.Adi,
Value = x.Kodu.ToString()
}).ToList();
return list;
}
Login.cshtml(Hometown is string field in model bindned to login view page):
#Html.DropDownListFor( x => x.Hometown, ((SelectList)ViewBag.Towns), new { #class = "form-control", placeholder = "Doğum Yeri" })
I expected this to work but getting error, message:
"The ViewData item that has the key 'Hometown' is of type
'System.String' but must be of type 'IEnumerable<SelectListItem>'."
how can I make it work properly? I just expected selectem item value to 'Hometown' property
The error means that that ViewBag.Towns is null. When the 2nd parameter (IEnumerable<SelectListItem> selectList) is null, the method expects the first parameter to be typeof IEnumerable<SelectListItem>.
Since you have assigned it in the GET method, this is almost certainly happening when you submit your form and have returned the view but have not repopulated the value of ViewBag.Towns as you did in the GET method.
As a side note, using new SelectList() is pointless extra overhead - it just creates another IEnumerable<SelectListItem> based on the first one. In addition, the 4th parameter of the SelectList constructor is ignored when you bind to a model property - internally the method builds a new IEnumerable<SelectListItem> and sets the Selected property based on the value of the property your binding to.
Your controller code should be
public ActionResult Index()
{
ViewBag.Towns = _skrsService.GetTowns();
return View(); // ideally you should be returning a model
}
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Index(YourModel model)
{
if (!ModelState.IsValid)
{
ViewBag.Towns = _skrsService.GetTowns(); // re-populate the SelectList
return View(model);
}
// save and redirect
}
But preferably you should be using a view model containing a property for the select list rather than ViewBag.
I have the following view model
public class ProjectVM
{
....
[Display(Name = "Category")]
[Required(ErrorMessage = "Please select a category")]
public int CategoryID { get; set; }
public IEnumerable<SelectListItem> CategoryList { get; set; }
....
}
and the following controller method to create a new Project and assign a Category
public ActionResult Create()
{
ProjectVM model = new ProjectVM
{
CategoryList = new SelectList(db.Categories, "ID", "Name")
}
return View(model);
}
public ActionResult Create(ProjectVM model)
{
if (!ModelState.IsValid)
{
return View(model);
}
// Save and redirect
}
and in the view
#model ProjectVM
....
#using (Html.BeginForm())
{
....
#Html.LabelFor(m => m.CategoryID)
#Html.DropDownListFor(m => m.CategoryID, Model.CategoryList, "-Please select-")
#Html.ValidationMessageFor(m => m.CategoryID)
....
<input type="submit" value="Create" />
}
The view displays correctly but when submitting the form, I get the following error message
InvalidOperationException: The ViewData item that has the key 'CategoryID' is of type 'System.Int32' but must be of type 'IEnumerable<SelectListItem>'.
The same error occurs using the #Html.DropDownList() method, and if I pass the SelectList using a ViewBag or ViewData.
The error means that the value of CategoryList is null (and as a result the DropDownListFor() method expects that the first parameter is of type IEnumerable<SelectListItem>).
You are not generating an input for each property of each SelectListItem in CategoryList (and nor should you) so no values for the SelectList are posted to the controller method, and therefore the value of model.CategoryList in the POST method is null. If you return the view, you must first reassign the value of CategoryList, just as you did in the GET method.
public ActionResult Create(ProjectVM model)
{
if (!ModelState.IsValid)
{
model.CategoryList = new SelectList(db.Categories, "ID", "Name"); // add this
return View(model);
}
// Save and redirect
}
To explain the inner workings (the source code can be seen here)
Each overload of DropDownList() and DropDownListFor() eventually calls the following method
private static MvcHtmlString SelectInternal(this HtmlHelper htmlHelper, ModelMetadata metadata,
string optionLabel, string name, IEnumerable<SelectListItem> selectList, bool allowMultiple,
IDictionary<string, object> htmlAttributes)
which checks if the selectList (the second parameter of #Html.DropDownListFor()) is null
// If we got a null selectList, try to use ViewData to get the list of items.
if (selectList == null)
{
selectList = htmlHelper.GetSelectData(name);
usedViewData = true;
}
which in turn calls
private static IEnumerable<SelectListItem> GetSelectData(this HtmlHelper htmlHelper, string name)
which evaluates the the first parameter of #Html.DropDownListFor() (in this case CategoryID)
....
o = htmlHelper.ViewData.Eval(name);
....
IEnumerable<SelectListItem> selectList = o as IEnumerable<SelectListItem>;
if (selectList == null)
{
throw new InvalidOperationException(String.Format(CultureInfo.CurrentCulture,
MvcResources.HtmlHelper_WrongSelectDataType,
name, o.GetType().FullName, "IEnumerable<SelectListItem>"));
}
Because property CategoryID is typeof int, it cannot be cast to IEnumerable<SelectListItem> and the exception is thrown (which is defined in the MvcResources.resx file as)
<data name="HtmlHelper_WrongSelectDataType" xml:space="preserve">
<value>The ViewData item that has the key '{0}' is of type '{1}' but must be of type '{2}'.</value>
</data>
according to stephens (user3559349) answer, this can be useful:
#Html.DropDownListFor(m => m.CategoryID, Model.CategoryList ?? new List<SelectListItem>(), "-Please select-")
or in ProjectVM:
public class ProjectVM
{
public ProjectVM()
{
CategoryList = new List<SelectListItem>();
}
...
}
Most Likely Caused some sort of error redirecting to your page and you not initializing your model's drop down lists again.
Make sure that you initialize your drop downs in either the model's constructor or every time before you send said model to the page.
Otherwise you will need to maintain the state of the drop down lists either through the view bag or through the hidden value helpers.
OK, the poster's canned answer neatly explained why the error occurred, but not how to get it to work. I'm not sure that's really an answer, but it did point me in the right direction.
I ran into the same issue and found a slick way to resolve it. I'll try to capture that here. Disclaimer - I work on web pages once a year or so and really don't know what I'm doing most of the time. This answer should in no way be considered an "expert" answer, but it does the job with little work...
Given that I have some data object (most likely a Data Transfer Object) that I want to use a drop-down list to supply valid values for a field, like so:
public class MyDataObject
{
public int id;
public string StrValue;
}
Then the ViewModel looks like this:
public class MyDataObjectVM
{
public int id;
public string StrValue;
public List<SectListItem> strValues;
}
The real problem here, as #Stephen so eloquently described above, is the select list isn't populated on the POST method in the controller. So your controller methods would look like this:
// GET
public ActionResult Create()
{
var dataObjectVM = GetNewMyDataObjectVM();
return View(dataObjectVM); // I use T4MVC, don't you?
}
private MyDataObjectVM GetNewMyDataObjectVM(MyDataObjectVM model = null)
{
return new MyDataObjectVM
{
int id = model?.Id ?? 0,
string StrValue = model?.StrValue ?? "",
var strValues = new List<SelectListItem>
{
new SelectListItem {Text = "Select", Value = ""},
new SelectListITem {Text = "Item1", Value = "Item1"},
new SelectListItem {Text = "Item2", Value = "Item2"}
};
};
}
// POST
public ActionResult Create(FormCollection formValues)
{
var dataObject = new MyDataObject();
try
{
UpdateModel(dataObject, formValues);
AddObjectToObjectStore(dataObject);
return RedirectToAction(Actions.Index);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
// fill in the drop-down list for the view model
var dataObjectVM = GetNewMyDataObjectVM();
ModelState.AddModelError("", ex.Message);
return View(dataObjectVM);
)
}
There you have it. This is NOT working code, I copy/pasted and edited to make it simple, but you get the idea. If the data members in both the original data model and the derived view model have the same name, UpdateModel() does an awesome job of filling in just the right data for you from the FormCollection values.
I'm posting this here so I can find the answer when I inevitably run into this issue again -- hopefully it will help someone else out as well.
I had the same problem, I was getting an invalid ModelState when I tried to post the form. For me, this was caused by setting CategoryId to int, when I changed it to string the ModelState was valid and the Create method worked as expected.
In my case the first ID in my list was zero, once I changed the ID to start from 1, it worked.
I thought this should have been an easier task :
Edit:
It seems till this day Asp.Net MVC couldn't provide a neat solution on this case:
If you want to pass a simple string as a model and you don't have to define more classes and stuff to do so...
Any ideas ??
Pass simple string as a model
here I'm trying to have a simple string model.
I'm getting this error :
"Value cannot be null or empty" / "Parameter name: name"
The View :
#model string
#using (Html.BeginForm())
{
<span>Please Enter the code</span>
#Html.TextBoxFor(m => m) // Error Happens here
<button id="btnSubmit" title="Submit"></button>
}
The Controller :
public string CodeText { get; set; }
public HomeController()
{
CodeText = "Please Enter MHM";
}
[HttpGet]
public ActionResult Index()
{
return View("Index", null, CodeText);
}
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Index(string code)
{
bool result = false;
if (code == "MHM")
result = true;
return View();
}
There's a much cleaner way of passing a string as a model into your view. You just need to use named parameters when returning your view:
[HttpGet]
public ActionResult Index()
{
string myStringModel = "I am passing this string as a model in the view";
return View(model:myStringModel);
}
I know you've already accepted an answer here - I'm adding this because there's a general gotcha associated with using a string model.
String as a model type in MVC is a nightmare, because if you do this in a controller:
string myStringModel = "Hello world";
return View("action", myStringModel);
It ends up choosing the wrong overload, and passing the myStringModel as a master name to the view engine.
In general it is easier simply to wrap it in a proper model type, as the accepted answer describes, but you can also simply force the compiler to choose the correct overload of View() by casting the string to object:
return View("action", (object)myStringModel);
The other issue you're having here of using TextBoxFor having issues with an 'unnamed' model - well you shouldn't be surprised by that... The only reason to use TextBoxFor is to ensure the fields are named correctly for binding when the underlying value is a property on a model type. In this case there is no name, because you're passing it as a top-level model type for a view - so you it could be argued that you shouldn't be using TextBoxFor() in the first place.
Either wrap the string in a view model object:
Model:
public class HomeViewModel
{
public string CodeText { get; set; }
}
Controller:
private HomeViewModel _model;
public HomeController()
{
_model = new HomeViewModel { CodeText = "My Text" };
}
[HttpGet]
public ActionResult Index()
{
return View("Index", _model);
}
View:
#Html.TextBoxFor(m => m.CodeText);
Or use EditorForModel:
#Html.EditorForModel()
You can simply use an overload of View() method.
View(string ViewName, object model)
in action method, call View with that signature.
return View("MyView", myString);
in view(.cshtml), define the model type as string
#model string
Then, #Model will return the string (myString).
I am trying to create (or even better find) a custom html extension method that works in a similar manor to the ListBoxFor but renders a group of checkboxes instead of a select multiple.
What is the best way of going about this? I am curious how the ListBoxFor method works, when it is only passed an expression and an enumerable of SelectListItems, which only have the default items selected. It is not passed the model, so how does it know when to select the correct items (somehow it seems able to do that)? Also, how does it write html attributes based on an anonymous object?
You haven't provided any details and specific example of what you are trying to achieve. You haven't provided any source code you have tried so far in order to solve the problem you are having. Next time you ask a question on StackOverflow please do so in order to make your question more meaningful and focused on a specific problem.
Anyway, here's an example. Let's suppose that you have defined a view model:
public class MyViewModel
{
public IEnumerable<string> SelectedValues { get; set; }
public IEnumerable<SelectListItem> Values { get; set; }
}
and a controller that will populate this view model with values and hopefully in the POST action obtain the selected values in the view:
public class HomeController : Controller
{
public ActionResult Index()
{
var model = new MyViewModel
{
SelectedValues = new[] { "1", "3" },
Values = new[]
{
new SelectListItem { Value = "1", Text = "item 1" },
new SelectListItem { Value = "2", Text = "item 2" },
new SelectListItem { Value = "3", Text = "item 3" },
}
};
return View(model);
}
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Index(MyViewModel model)
{
// model.SelectedValues will contain the ids of items that were checked
// in the checkbox list
}
}
and then a view:
#model MyViewModel
#using (Html.BeginForm())
{
#Html.CheckBoxListFor(x => x.SelectedValues, Model.Values, null)
<button type="submit">OK</button>
}
OK, so far so good. The last part is to try to implement this CheckBoxListFor helper. Obviously depending on your specific requirements and context there could be many possible ways to do this (see my remark in the beginning of the answer). So here's just some sample implementation that could get you started:
public static class HtmlExtnsions
{
public static IHtmlString CheckBoxListFor<TModel, TProperty>(
this HtmlHelper<TModel> htmlHelper,
Expression<Func<TModel, TProperty>> expression,
IEnumerable<SelectListItem> selectList,
object htmlAttributes
)
{
var name = ExpressionHelper.GetExpressionText(expression);
string fullHtmlFieldName = htmlHelper.ViewContext.ViewData.TemplateInfo.GetFullHtmlFieldName(name);
var values = GetModelStateValue(htmlHelper.ViewData, fullHtmlFieldName, typeof(string[]));
if (values == null)
{
values = htmlHelper.ViewData.Eval(fullHtmlFieldName);
}
if (values != null)
{
var collection =
from object value in values as IEnumerable
select Convert.ToString(value, CultureInfo.CurrentCulture);
var hashSet = new HashSet<string>(collection, StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase);
var list = new List<SelectListItem>();
foreach (var item in selectList)
{
item.Selected = ((item.Value != null) ? hashSet.Contains(item.Value) : hashSet.Contains(item.Text));
list.Add(item);
}
selectList = list;
}
var sb = new StringBuilder();
foreach (var item in selectList)
{
var checkbox = new TagBuilder("input");
checkbox.Attributes["type"] = "checkbox";
checkbox.Attributes["name"] = fullHtmlFieldName;
checkbox.Attributes["value"] = item.Value;
checkbox.GenerateId(fullHtmlFieldName);
if (item.Selected)
{
checkbox.Attributes["checked"] = "checked";
}
sb.Append(checkbox.ToString(TagRenderMode.SelfClosing));
sb.Append(item.Value);
}
return new HtmlString(sb.ToString());
}
private static object GetModelStateValue(ViewDataDictionary viewData, string key, Type destinationType)
{
ModelState modelState;
if (viewData.ModelState.TryGetValue(key, out modelState) && modelState.Value != null)
{
return modelState.Value.ConvertTo(destinationType, null);
}
return null;
}
}
I have tried this is RC1 and then upgraded to RC2 which did not resolve the issue.
// in my controller
ViewData["UserId"] = new SelectList(
users,
"UserId",
"DisplayName",
selectedUserId.Value); // this has a value
result: the SelectedValue property is set on the object
// in my view
<%=Html.DropDownList("UserId", (SelectList)ViewData["UserId"])%>
result: all expected options are rendered to the client, but the selected attribute is not set. The item in SelectedValue exists within the list, but the first item in the list is always defaulted to selected.
How should I be doing this?
Update
Thanks to John Feminella's reply I found out what the issue is. "UserId" is a property in the Model my View is strongly typed to. When Html.DropDownList("UserId" is changed to any other name but "UserId", the selected value is rendered correctly.
This results in the value not being bound to the model though.
This is how I fixed this problem:
I had the following:
Controller:
ViewData["DealerTypes"] = Helper.SetSelectedValue(listOfValues, selectedValue) ;
View
<%=Html.DropDownList("DealerTypes", ViewData["DealerTypes"] as SelectList)%>
Changed by the following:
View
<%=Html.DropDownList("DealerTypesDD", ViewData["DealerTypes"] as SelectList)%>
It appears that the DropDown must not have the same name has the ViewData name :S weird but it worked.
Try this:
public class Person {
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
}
And then:
var list = new[] {
new Person { Id = 1, Name = "Name1" },
new Person { Id = 2, Name = "Name2" },
new Person { Id = 3, Name = "Name3" }
};
var selectList = new SelectList(list, "Id", "Name", 2);
ViewData["People"] = selectList;
Html.DropDownList("PeopleClass", (SelectList)ViewData["People"])
With MVC RC2, I get:
<select id="PeopleClass" name="PeopleClass">
<option value="1">Name1</option>
<option selected="selected" value="2">Name2</option>
<option value="3">Name3</option>
</select>
You can still name the DropDown as "UserId" and still have model binding working correctly for you.
The only requirement for this to work is that the ViewData key that contains the SelectList does not have the same name as the Model property that you want to bind. In your specific case this would be:
// in my controller
ViewData["Users"] = new SelectList(
users,
"UserId",
"DisplayName",
selectedUserId.Value); // this has a value
// in my view
<%=Html.DropDownList("UserId", (SelectList)ViewData["Users"])%>
This will produce a select element that is named UserId, which has the same name as the UserId property in your model and therefore the model binder will set it with the value selected in the html's select element generated by the Html.DropDownList helper.
I'm not sure why that particular Html.DropDownList constructor won't select the value specified in the SelectList when you put the select list in the ViewData with a key equal to the property name. I suspect it has something to do with how the DropDownList helper is used in other scenarios, where the convention is that you do have a SelectList in the ViewData with the same name as the property in your model. This will work correctly:
// in my controller
ViewData["UserId"] = new SelectList(
users,
"UserId",
"DisplayName",
selectedUserId.Value); // this has a value
// in my view
<%=Html.DropDownList("UserId")%>
The code in the previous MVC 3 post does not work but it is a good start. I will fix it. I have tested this code and it works in MVC 3 Razor C# This code uses the ViewModel pattern to populate a property that returns a List<SelectListItem>.
The Model class
public class Product
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public decimal Price { get; set; }
}
The ViewModel class
using System.Web.Mvc;
public class ProductListviewModel
{
public List<SelectListItem> Products { get; set; }
}
The Controller Method
public ViewResult List()
{
var productList = new List<SelectListItem>();
foreach (Product p in Products)
{
productList.Add(new SelectListItem
{
Value = p.ProductId.ToString(),
Text = "Product: " + p.Name + " " + p.Price.ToString(),
// To set the selected item use the following code
// Note: you should not set every item to selected
Selected = true
});
}
ProductListViewModel productListVM = new ProductListViewModeld();
productListVM.Products = productList;
return View(productListVM);
}
The view
#model MvcApp.ViewModels.ProductListViewModel
#using (Html.BeginForm())
{
#Html.DropDownList("Products", Model.Products)
}
The HTML output will be something like
<select id="Products" name="Products">
<option value="3">Product: Widget 10.00</option>
<option value="4">Product: Gadget 5.95</option>
</select>
depending on how you format the output. I hope this helps. The code does work.
If we don't think this is a bug the team should fix, at lease MSDN should improve the document. The confusing really comes from the poor document of this. In MSDN, it explains the parameters name as,
Type: System.String
The name of the form field to return.
This just means the final html it generates will use that parameter as the name of the select input. But, it actually means more than that.
I guess the designer assumes that user will use a view model to display the dropdownlist, also will use post back to the same view model. But in a lot cases, we don't really follow that assumption.
Use the example above,
public class Person {
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
}
If we follow the assumption,we should define a view model for this dropdownlist related view
public class PersonsSelectViewModel{
public string SelectedPersonId,
public List<SelectListItem> Persons;
}
Because when post back, only the selected value will post back, so it assume it should post back to the model's property SelectedPersonId, which means Html.DropDownList's first parameter name should be 'SelectedPersonId'. So, the designer thinks that when display the model view in the view, the model's property SelectedPersonId should hold the default value of that dropdown list. Even thought your List<SelectListItem> Persons already set the Selected flag to indicate which one is selected/default, the tml.DropDownList will actually ignore that and rebuild it's own IEnumerable<SelectListItem> and set the default/selected item based on the name.
Here is the code from asp.net mvc
private static MvcHtmlString SelectInternal(this HtmlHelper htmlHelper, ModelMetadata metadata,
string optionLabel, string name, IEnumerable<SelectListItem> selectList, bool allowMultiple,
IDictionary<string, object> htmlAttributes)
{
...
bool usedViewData = false;
// If we got a null selectList, try to use ViewData to get the list of items.
if (selectList == null)
{
selectList = htmlHelper.GetSelectData(name);
usedViewData = true;
}
object defaultValue = (allowMultiple) ? htmlHelper.GetModelStateValue(fullName, typeof(string[])) : htmlHelper.GetModelStateValue(fullName, typeof(string));
// If we haven't already used ViewData to get the entire list of items then we need to
// use the ViewData-supplied value before using the parameter-supplied value.
if (defaultValue == null && !String.IsNullOrEmpty(name))
{
if (!usedViewData)
{
defaultValue = htmlHelper.ViewData.Eval(name);
}
else if (metadata != null)
{
defaultValue = metadata.Model;
}
}
if (defaultValue != null)
{
selectList = GetSelectListWithDefaultValue(selectList, defaultValue, allowMultiple);
}
...
return tagBuilder.ToMvcHtmlString(TagRenderMode.Normal);
}
So, the code actually went further, it not only try to look up the name in the model, but also in the viewdata, as soon as it finds one, it will rebuild the selectList and ignore your original Selected.
The problem is, in a lot of cases, we don't really use it that way. we just want to throw in a selectList with one/multiple item(s) Selected set true.
Of course the solution is simple, use a name that not in the model nor in the viewdata. When it can not find a match, it will use the original selectList and the original Selected will take affect.
But i still think mvc should improve it by add one more condition
if ((defaultValue != null) && (!selectList.Any(i=>i.Selected)))
{
selectList = GetSelectListWithDefaultValue(selectList, defaultValue, allowMultiple);
}
Because, if the original selectList has already had one Selected, why would you ignore that?
Just my thoughts.
This appears to be a bug in the SelectExtensions class as it will only check the ViewData rather than the model for the selected item. So the trick is to copy the selected item from the model into the ViewData collection under the name of the property.
This is taken from the answer I gave on the MVC forums, I also have a more complete answer in a blog post that uses Kazi's DropDownList attribute...
Given a model
public class ArticleType
{
public Guid Id { get; set; }
public string Description { get; set; }
}
public class Article
{
public Guid Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public ArticleType { get; set; }
}
and a basic view model of
public class ArticleModel
{
public Guid Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
[UIHint("DropDownList")]
public Guid ArticleType { get; set; }
}
Then we write a DropDownList editor template as follows..
<%# Control Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl" %>
<script runat="server">
IEnumerable<SelectListItem> GetSelectList()
{
var metaData = ViewData.ModelMetadata;
if (metaData == null)
{
return null;
}
var selected = Model is SelectListItem ? ((SelectListItem) Model).Value : Model.ToString();
ViewData[metaData.PropertyName] = selected;
var key = metaData.PropertyName + "List";
return (IEnumerable<SelectListItem>)ViewData[key];
}
</script>
<%= Html.DropDownList(null, GetSelectList()) %>
This will also work if you change ArticleType in the view model to a SelectListItem, though you do have to implement a type converter as per Kazi's blog and register it to force the binder to treat this as a simple type.
In your controller we then have...
public ArticleController
{
...
public ActionResult Edit(int id)
{
var entity = repository.FindOne<Article>(id);
var model = builder.Convert<ArticleModel>(entity);
var types = repository.FindAll<ArticleTypes>();
ViewData["ArticleTypeList"] = builder.Convert<SelectListItem>(types);
return VIew(model);
}
...
}
The problems is that dropboxes don't work the same as listboxes, at least the way ASP.NET MVC2 design expects: A dropbox allows only zero or one values, as listboxes can have a multiple value selection. So, being strict with HTML, that value shouldn't be in the option list as "selected" flag, but in the input itself.
See the following example:
<select id="combo" name="combo" value="id2">
<option value="id1">This is option 1</option>
<option value="id2" selected="selected">This is option 2</option>
<option value="id3">This is option 3</option>
</select>
<select id="listbox" name="listbox" multiple>
<option value="id1">This is option 1</option>
<option value="id2" selected="selected">This is option 2</option>
<option value="id3">This is option 3</option>
</select>
The combo has the option selected, but also has its value attribute set. So, if you want ASP.NET MVC2 to render a dropbox and also have a specific value selected (i.e., default values, etc.), you should give it a value in the rendering, like this:
// in my view
<%=Html.DropDownList("UserId", selectListItems /* (SelectList)ViewData["UserId"]*/, new { #Value = selectedUser.Id } /* Your selected value as an additional HTML attribute */)%>
In ASP.NET MVC 3 you can simply add your list to ViewData...
var options = new List<SelectListItem>();
options.Add(new SelectListItem { Value = "1", Text = "1" });
options.Add(new SelectListItem { Value = "2", Text = "2" });
options.Add(new SelectListItem { Value = "3", Text = "3", Selected = true });
ViewData["options"] = options;
...and then reference it by name in your razor view...
#Html.DropDownList("options")
You don't have to manually "use" the list in the DropDownList call. Doing it this way correctly set the selected value for me too.
Disclaimer:
Haven't tried this with the web forms view engine, but it should work too.
I haven't tested this in the v1 and v2, but it might work.
I managed to get the desired result, but with a slightly different approach. In the Dropdownlist i used the Model and then referenced it. Not sure if this was what you were looking for.
#Html.DropDownList("Example", new SelectList(Model.FeeStructures, "Id", "NameOfFeeStructure", Model.Matters.FeeStructures))
Model.Matters.FeeStructures in above is my id, which could be your value of the item that should be selected.