MVC 3 multiple DisplayFor-Templates

Question

I\'m trying to make a custom template for a basket item list. I need a few different templates, as I have different ways of displaying the item, depending on if it\'s on the web

Answer 1

I suggest another solution useful even more with lists of heterogeneous objects (i.e. BasketItem subclasses), using the additionalViewData parameter of the DisplayFor method, like:

@DisplayFor(b=>b.Items, new { layout="row" })

in this way the helper works fine with IEnumerable, calling for each item (subclass of T) the relative DisplayTemplate, passing it the additionalViewData values in the ViewData dictionary.

The template could so output different code for different layout values.

In the example above the template named View\Shared\DisplayTemplates\BasketItem (or the name of the subclass) should be like this:

@model MyProject.BasketItem // or BasketItem subclass
@{ 
    string layout = ViewData["layout"] as string ?? "default";

    switch(layout)
    {
        case "row":
            

            ...
            
        break;
        // other layouts
        ...
        default: // strongly recommended a default case