Templating Html.EditorFor for specific datatype in ASP.Net MVC3?

Question

I am working on a .Net MVC3 application. I have a couple different models which all have an attribute or two with a DataType of varchar(1). For each of these want to have a drop down menu for Yes/No with a value of 'Y' or 'N'.

My current solution is as follows: I have a method in a public class which sends gives me my List of Yes/No values for the dropdown:

        List<SelectListItem> items = new List<SelectListItem>();
        items.Add(new SelectListItem() { Text = "Yes", Value = "Y" });
        items.Add(new SelectListItem() { Text = "No", Value = "N" });
        return items;

In my Controller, I then set this list into the ViewBag and send it into the View:

ViewBag.YesNo = new SelectList(repository.GetYesNo(), "Value", "Text");

And then I use it for a specific Model attribute like this:

@Html.DropDownListFor(model => model.PARAMETER_REQUIRED, (SelectList)ViewBag.YesNo)

This gets the job done but I don't like the ViewBag method because it's pretty tedious to maintain it when switching Views and I don't like having to repeat code. I want to change this up so that I can just use

@Html.EditorFor(model => model.PARAMETER_REQUIRED)

and have Razor know that I want this to be a DropDown with my Yes/No attributes.I also want to have this be reusable so that I can use the same template for any fields (in other models) that I want to edit with this Yes/No dropdown.

Is this possible? I know that 'templating' DisplayFor is possible. Can we achieve something similar with EditorFor?

mattypiper · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-29 20:49:44Z

4

Here are some really good examples of the built-in display templates and editor templates. Take a look at EditorTemplates/Boolean.ascx. You'll want something like this, in fact I'm not sure why you can't use the Boolean template as-is and change your view model to just be List or other suitable collection. Then, if necessary, you can customize the Boolean editor template to give you the exact DropDownList view you need.

answered Nov 29, 2011 at 20:49

mattypiper

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4 Comments

Rondel Over a year ago

this is the exact page I was looking into right when you sent this. I set up my own EditorTemplate with this as a starting point. I then set the properties to use the template using Data Annotations on the partial class and [UIHint("template")]

mattypiper Over a year ago

Yah creating your own template can be really powerful. But seriously back to your solution design, did you think about just using plain old booleans in a collection? Then you can just tweak the view template and your model becomes simple.

Rondel Over a year ago

Yeah. Really the data layer isn't set up correctly because the column is meant to store a boolean but is configured as a varchar(1). Since I don't 'own' the db, I can't make those changes (other processes use the db as well). I could model it in my code as a bool but then I will have to do the conversions to actually save it to the db.

Jeanot Zubler Over a year ago

Link is dead. Here is a link to the wayback machine: web.archive.org/web/20230610165807/http://…

Brian Mains · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-29 20:01:24Z

1

An edit template uses the view assigned to it by the type given; what you may want to do is create a named template and apply the name to the Html.EditorFor overload. Then, you can create a specialized template for that scenario, and not have it be globally defined for the char type. Check out this example.

answered Nov 29, 2011 at 20:01

Brian Mains

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