Create ViewModel for Navigation

Question

I have an MVC 4 application with several views. I.e. Products, Recipes, Distrubutors & Stores.

Each view is based around a model.

Let\'s keep it simple

Answer 1

public class MenuContents
{
    public IEnumerable AllProducts { get; set; }
    public IEnumerable AllRecepies { get; set; }
    public IEnumerable AllDistributors { get; set; }
    public IEnumerable AllStores { get; set; }

    private XXXDb db = new XXXUSDb();

    public void PopulateModel()
    {
        AllProducts = db.Products.ToList();
        AllRecepies = db.Recepies.ToList();
        AllDistributors = db.Distributors.ToList();
        AllStores = db.Stores.ToList();
    }
}

Then in your controller

public ActionResult PartialWhatever()
{
    MenuContents model = new MenuContents();
    model.PopulateModel();

    return PartialView("PartialViewName", model);
}

Then in your partial view

@Model MenuContents

... do whatever here