Why is my ASP.NET MVC Edit Form not retaining data? - asp.net-mvc

Question

On my edit view, the information doesn't seem to be displayed on the form in the textboxes. Any idea why this is happening? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Here's how my edit functions inside the controller look like:
[HttpGet]
[Authorize(Roles = "Admin")]
public ActionResult Edit(int id)
{
var logic = new ContactBUS();
var user = logic.GetContact(id);
var mUser = Membership.GetUser(user.Username);
bool memUserExists = doesUserExist(mUser);
if (memUserExists)
{
var model = new RoleListViewModel
{
AllRoles = Roles.GetAllRoles().ToList()
};
return View(model);
}
return View(logic.GetContact(id));
}
[HttpPost]
[Authorize(Roles = "Admin")]
public ActionResult Edit(Contact contact)
{
var logic = new ContactBUS();
if (ModelState.IsValid)
{
logic.EditContact(contact);
return RedirectToAction("List");
}
else
return View(contact);
}
}
Edit.cshtml:
#model ContactWeb.Models.RoleListViewModel
<h2>Edit</h2>
<div style="float:left;width:350px;">
#{Html.RenderPartial("Form", new ContactWebLibrary.Contact());}
</div>
and Form.cshtml:
#model ContactWebLibrary.Contact
#using (Html.BeginForm()) {
<input type="hidden" value="#Model.Id" />
<fieldset id="ContactEditor">
<legend>Fields</legend>
<div>
#Html.LabelFor(c=>c.FirstName, "First Name")
#Html.TextBoxFor(c=>c.FirstName)
#Html.ValidationMessageFor(c=>c.FirstName)
</div>
<div>
#Html.LabelFor(c=>c.LastName, "Last Name")
#Html.TextBoxFor(c=>c.LastName)
#Html.ValidationMessageFor(c=>c.LastName)
</div>
...
<input type="submit" value="#(Model.Id == 0 ? "Create" : "Edit" )" />
</fieldset>
}

Answer 1

If memUserExists is true then a new RolesListViewModel is passed to the Edit view. This in turn passes a brand new Contact model to the partial view each time this partial view is rendered:
#{Html.RenderPartial("Form", new ContactWebLibrary.Contact());}
So the contact used in the partial will not contain any information to display, hence, no values are being displayed.
Does logic.GetContact(id) return a RoleListViewModel? Otherwise, when memUserExists is false, I don't think the following line would work when returning the Edit view:
return View(logic.GetContact(id));
And also, the following line in your [HttpPost]:
return View(contact);
This passes a Contact object to a view that is expecting a RoleListViewModel.
Hope this helps.