ASP.NET MVC 5 Scaffolding not creating elements for enum property - asp.net-mvc

Question

This is probably a newbie question, as I'm quite new to ASP.NET MVC 5. When I tell Visual Studio to add a View based on my ViewModel class, it completely skips properties defined like public EnumName? PropertyName { get; set; } and does not create any #Html.EditorFor calls for it.
However, if I manually add the call #Html.EditorFor(model => model.PropertyName, new { htmlAttributes = new { #class = "form-control" } }) I get exactly what I expect -- a dropdown which is empty by default. Should scaffolding not do this by itself?
My understanding is that this is supposed to be supported in the current version of ASP.NET MVC. Am I wrong about that, or am I missing something? Help or advice is greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
These are the ASP.NET products installed:
ASP.NET and Web Tools 12.4.51016.0
ASP.NET Web Frameworks and Tools 2012.2 4.1.21001.0
ASP.NET Web Frameworks and Tools 2013 5.2.21010.0
Edit for sample code:
Here is a small section of the view model. There are 170 different properties, almost all of them nullable-Enum type.
public partial class MedicalHistoryViewModel
{
public YesNo? Cancer { get; set; }
public MedicalHistoryDiagnosed? CancerDiagnosed { get; set; }
public YesNoUnsure? CancerIndustrialInOrigin { get; set; }
public YesNo? Diabetes { get; set; }
public MedicalHistoryDiagnosed? DiabetesDiagnosed { get; set; }
public YesNoUnsure? DiabetesIndustrialInOrigin { get; set; }
public YesNo? HeartDisease { get; set; }
//...
[Display(Name = #"Do you attribute the sleep disturbance to pain, anxiety and/or depression, or to other factors?")]
[DataType(DataType.MultilineText)]
public string SleepDisturbanceAttributedToComments { get; set; }
[Display(Name = #"Other (please specify)")]
[DataType(DataType.MultilineText)]
public string ParentsGrandparentsMedicalHistoryComments { get; set; }
}
Here is the complete output I get from Scaffolding. As you can see, it has completely ignored all enum properties.
#model QmeSurveyApp.ViewModels.MedicalHistoryViewModel
#{
ViewBag.Title = "EditMedicalHistory"; }
<h2>EditMedicalHistory</h2>
#using (Html.BeginForm()) {
#Html.AntiForgeryToken()
<div class="form-horizontal">
<h4>MedicalHistoryViewModel</h4>
<hr />
#Html.ValidationSummary(true, "", new { #class = "text-danger" })
<div class="form-group">
#Html.LabelFor(model => model.SleepDisturbanceAttributedToComments, htmlAttributes: new { #class = "control-label col-md-2" })
<div class="col-md-10">
#Html.EditorFor(model => model.SleepDisturbanceAttributedToComments, new { htmlAttributes = new { #class = "form-control" } })
#Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.SleepDisturbanceAttributedToComments, "", new { #class = "text-danger" })
</div>
</div>
<div class="form-group">
#Html.LabelFor(model => model.SiblingsCousinsMedicalHistoryComments, htmlAttributes: new { #class = "control-label col-md-2" })
<div class="col-md-10">
#Html.EditorFor(model => model.SiblingsCousinsMedicalHistoryComments, new { htmlAttributes = new { #class = "form-control" } })
#Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.SiblingsCousinsMedicalHistoryComments, "", new { #class = "text-danger" })
</div>
</div>
<div class="form-group">
#Html.LabelFor(model => model.ParentsGrandparentsMedicalHistoryComments, htmlAttributes: new { #class = "control-label col-md-2" })
<div class="col-md-10">
#Html.EditorFor(model => model.ParentsGrandparentsMedicalHistoryComments, new { htmlAttributes
= new { #class = "form-control" } })
#Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.ParentsGrandparentsMedicalHistoryComments, "", new { #class = "text-danger" })
</div>
</div>
<div class="form-group">
<div class="col-md-offset-2 col-md-10">
<input type="submit" value="Save" class="btn btn-default" />
</div>
</div>
</div> }
<div>
#Html.ActionLink("Back to List", "Index") </div>
#section Scripts {
#Scripts.Render("~/bundles/jqueryval") }
But, if I add this block manually, I get exactly what I want: a drop-down which is empty by default, with my full pick list as the choices.
<div class="form-group">
#Html.LabelFor(model => model.Cancer, htmlAttributes: new { #class = "control-label col-md-2" })
<div class="col-md-10">
#Html.EditorFor(model => model.Cancer, new { htmlAttributes = new { #class = "form-control" } })
#Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Cancer, "", new { #class = "text-danger" })
</div>
</div>

Answer 1

You don't mention it, but I'm guessing you're not using Entity Framework.
I had a similar situation in an MVC project I was working in without EF. I had a POCO with a property that was an enum, and it was being completely skipped by the scaffolding engine. I even tried overriding the T4 templates with my own CodeTemplates and that's when I noticed the ModelMetadata.Properties collection didn't even contain my enum property.
I finally got it to work just by adding an empty Code First Entity Data model to the project. Doing that adds the Data context class textbox to the Add View scaffold item, and the resulting scaffolded view now includes my enum properties. This seems like a bug to me.