Multiple Submit Buttons in MVC3 - FormCollection has no Key/Value for Input Type Submit - Remote Validation Issue?

Question

I have the two buttons in MVC3 application.

Answer 1

You might be able to get away with an ActionMethodSelectorAttribute attribute and override the IsValidForRequest method. You can see below this method just determines whether a particular parameter (Name) matches one of it's properties (Type). It should bind with a view model that looks like this:

public class TestViewModel
{
    public string command { get; set; }
    public string moreProperties { get; set; }
}

The attribute could look like this:

public class AcceptSubmitTypeAttribute : ActionMethodSelectorAttribute
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string Type { get; set; }

    public override bool IsValidForRequest(ControllerContext controllerContext, MethodInfo methodInfo)
    {
        return controllerContext.RequestContext.HttpContext
            .Request.Form[this.Name] == this.Type;
    }
}

Then, you could tag your actions with the AcceptSubmitType attribute like this:

[AcceptSubmitType(Name="command", Type="Transactions")]
public ActionResult Index(TestViewModel vm) 
{
    // use view model to do whatever
}

// to pseudo-override the "Index" action
[ActionName("Index")]
[AcceptSubmitType(Name="command", Type="All Transactions")]
public ActionResult Index_All(TestViewModel vm) 
{
    // use view model to do whatever
}

This also eliminates the need for logic in a single controller action since it seems you genuinely need two separate courses of action.