need i create one model for each view in MVC4 - asp.net-mvc

Actually i am new learner for MVC4, my boss want to change the old asp.net webform to MVC4.
that i have some problems.
one is for each view is that need to create seperate model?
for example, in login page, users just put their name and password and submit.
so in order to receive those name and password, need i create one model for that name and password, namely one auth class with two class member, name and pass.
Or is there any better way to transfer old one to MVC

What you're talking about is a View Model - a class that represents your view / form. Instance of this class will be passed as a parameter to your Login action and will contain username and password. You will usually name your view model class after the view, eg. LoginViewModel.
It is an accepted way to create MVC applications.

Related

Creating a model for MVC

I'm building my first MVC project and I have a question about the model.
Each webpage can only contain 1 model, yet my page will require 2 models, one is the search option (the ability to narrow your search such as selecting price range, colour etc) as well as the data.
Is it really as simple as creating a new Model, similar to a ViewModel which in this case would only have 2 properties, a SearchModel and a ProductModel?
Yes, there are really two "models" which is sometimes confusing. There's the "View Model" and the "Domain Model." The view model is passed directly to and from the view. The domain model describes the real-life domain that you're dealing with and is what the database persists. Often, they are the same thing, such as if you're displaying information for a single real domain object (e.g., a car). If you have two domain models that go on one page, you should make a view model with both as properties.
If you are looking to have two models in a view then this question might provide useful information:
multiple-models-in-a-view
Edit:
A good example is the 'Manage' view in the default 'Account' controller of a fresh mvc app. It uses a partial view to handle the changing of a user's password. Whilst both views are using the same model type it shows how to implement a partial view. In this case both the main view and the partial are submitting to the same method on the controller, hence they need to use the same model (which is a parameter for the controller method). But if the partial were to invoke a different controller method then the submitted model could be different. Hope this makes sense :)

ASP.NET MVC Multiple Partial Views in 1 View Model Binding

I am having trouble dealing with user registration in ASP.NET MVC3 Model Binding.
Basically, I have a ViewModel that consists of UserDetails (name, identification, dob and other things) and a reusable ViewModel, Address.
So, UserDetails class will also carry an Address class.
Then, I created a partial view with model binding to Address ViewModel so that this too can be reusable.
In view, this is what I did: #Html.Partial("CommonAddress")
However, upon creation of user, I was unable to retrieve Address at all as it is still null. Is there a way to resolve this issue?
Pass your address model to the partial just like
#Html.Partial("CommonAddress", Model.Address)
If you do not have a model yet, pass a default/empty model from your Controller Edit action (the one that handles the GET HTTP request) to the view.

How to handle hidden fields in MVC forms?

I have a FormViewModel that handles different fields. Many of them have not to be presented to the user (such as modified_date, current_user_id) so I am using hidden fields to respect the FormViewModel structure. When submitted they are passed to the controller's action and correctly saved to the DB but I'm asking: is it the best way to do in ASPNET MVC? I would have preferred to define them in FormViewModel and using only the fields to be modified instead of showing also the non-modifiable as hidden fields.
Is there a better way to do it?
If these fields are not being touched by the user than I would do this;
Create a FormViewModel with only the fields that are relevant. Also the primary key.
The primary key still needs to be on the page me thinks.
Then in the controller you accept the FormViewModel as the argument, you then load the actual model and update, validate fields as required and save the model.
The above is simplistic and you'll have more layers but you should get the idea
I think you can do a few things to make your life a little easier:
Let the URL (and the routing mechanism) give you the id (the primary key of whatever you are trying to edit)
You can have a URL like '/Student/Edit/1' Routing will ensure that your Action method gets the id value directly.
Have 2 action methods to handle your request. One decorated with [HttpGet] to render the initial form to the user (where you just retrieve your object from the repository and pass it on to your View) and a [HttpPost] one to actually handle the post back from the user.
The second method could look something like:
[HttpPost]
[ActionName("Edit")]
public ActionResult EditPost(int id) {
...your code here...
}
Retrieve the actual record from the repository/store based on the id passed in.
Use the UpdateModel function to apply the changes to the database record and pass on the record back to your repository layer to store it back in the database.
However, in a real world application, you will probably want separation of concerns and decoupling between your repository and your view layer (ASP.NET MVC.)
If they are part of the model, the method you are using is perfectly fine. You even have a helper method in HtmlHelper.HiddenFor to output the hidden field for you. However, if the values are something like modified date or current user, you'd might be better suited passing those along from your controller to a DTO for your data layer. I'm making some assumptions about what you're doing for data access, though.
The risk with storing data which shouldn't be modified in hidden fields is that it can be modified using a browsers built in/extension developer tools. Upon post these changes will be saved to your database (if that's how you're handling the action).
To protect hidden fields you can use the MVC Security Extensions project https://mvcsecurity.codeplex.com.
Say the field you want to protect is Id...
On you controller post method add:
[ValidateAntiModelInjection("Id")]
Within your view add:
#Html.AntiModelInjectionFor(m => m.Id)
#Html.HiddenFor(m => m.Id)
On post your Id field will be validated.
Create a FormViewModel with only the fields that are relevant. Also the primary key.
The primary key still needs to be on the page me thinks.
Then in the controller you accept the FormViewModel as the argument, you then load the actual model and update, validate fields as required and save the model.
The above is simplistic and you'll have more layers but you should get the idea

Returning ad-hoc view models from ASP.NET MVC2 Controllers

I'm porting an existing system to ASP.NET MVC2. In the current legacy app, the user can select from dozens of available fields to customize CRUD forms for different entities in the domain model, similar to the way ERP systems allow customization of core modules.
My question: I'm looking for a good pattern or example for this kind of behavior in ASP.NET MVC2. It seems to me it's rather like creating a ViewModel dynamically based upon user choices, or perhaps the right approach is data-driven view pages that aren't strongly-typed where I can reflect over the results client-side to determine field headings or something -- if that makes sense :). Or maybe I can drive AutoMapper or similar dynamically # runtime based on user choices?
The underlying domain model is EF4-based and I'm using a simple Repository pattern # present for the ViewModel.
TIA for any input! Michael
If I didn't find anything else that matched the needs and went on to do it custom, I would:
Use the ViewModel with all the fields / not just the ones the user picked.
Pass both the ViewModel and the view configuration to the view
Call some html helper that for each item in the configuration adds a field with the corresponding property in the model
The configuration could be passed as either part of a containing ViewModel or in a separate entry in ViewData
Depending on what you need, building/passing the view configuration could be put in an Action Filter. Alternatively the helper could pull it directly.
A different approach is if you need completely custom fields. I mean user defined fields. If that's the scenario, that's not typed at the controller level already, so I'd pass the list of fields/values to the view. The view can do a foreach on those adding the fields. Again that could be moved to a HtmlHelper.

Code behind user control

How would one go about performing controller actions from withing an ASP.net MVC user control?
My scenario is that I have a userID and I want to transform it into a name from the database. To do this I've annotated my model with a display type and put a User template in the shared display templates but I'm not sure where I should write the code which does the lookup to convert from userID to user name.
I think that code ought to go into your models and you should be calling it in your controller and passing it to your user-control in a viewdata. This is if I understood your question.
I would just have the model expose the name and not the userID. This way your view (user control) is only displaying the name and not trying to do a DB lookup. Your "User Control" model would be responsible for how it gets the name, i.e. the DB from your question.
In short, you don't do that.
You should be passing the necessary data to the MVC user control from the View, which in turn should be getting it's information from the controller.
The view (or user control) should not have any knowledge of the controller. You may want to use RenderAction instead of a user control if you feel that the view shouldn't be responsible for passing the necessary information into the user control.

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