Populate DropDownList in MVC 5

Question

Here is my code for my AddNewProductViewModel

using AccessorizeForLess.Data;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel.DataA         


        

Answer 1

First I would change your ViewModel to include a SelectedCategoryId and I would change your options to be Categories.

Without seeing the code for your get I am assumbing ProductCategory is something like the following:

public class ProductCategory {
  public int Id {get;set;}
  public string Name { get;set;}
}

Your razor mark-up would them become:

<div class="form-group">
     @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Categories, new { @class = "control-label col-md-2" })
        <div class="col-md-10">
            @Html.DropDownListFor(model => model.SelectedCategoryId, 
            new SelectList(Model.Categories, "Id", "Name"), "- Please Select -")
            @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Categories)
        </div>
</div>

The first parameter is the selected catgegory and your options are populated from Categories.

WorkingFiddle

Answer 2

I solved the issue (thanks to everyone for the tips). This is for anyone who may be having issues like I was.

I changed my Create method to look like so:

// GET: /Products/Create
public ActionResult Create()
{
    var p = new AddNewProductViewModel();
    p.Categories = entities.ProductCategories.ToList();
    return View(p);
}

My AddNewProductViewModel looks like so:

using AccessorizeForLess.Data;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;
using System.Web;

namespace AccessorizeForLess.ViewModels
{
    public class AddNewProductViewModel
    {
        public string Name { get; set; }

        [DataType(DataType.MultilineText)]
        public string Description { get; set; }

        public decimal Price { get; set; }

        public string AltText { get; set; }

        public int Quantity { get; set; }

        public HttpPostedFileBase Image { get; set; }

        public int SelectedCategoryId {get;set;}
        public List<ProductCategory> Categories { get; set; }
        public ProductCategory Category { get; set; }
    }
}

The in my view:

<div class="form-group">
    @Html.LabelFor(model => model.SelectedCategoryId, "Category",new { @class = "control-label col-md-2" })
    <div class="col-md-10">
        @Html.DropDownListFor(model => model.SelectedCategoryId, new SelectList(Model.Categories, "CategoryId", "CategoryName"), "- Please Select -")
        @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.SelectedCategoryId)
    </div>
</div>

Thanks for the help everyone :)

Answer 3

Use your controller to build the list, then call the list from the view.

Controller:

public static List<SelectListItem> GetDropDown()
    {
        List<SelectListItem> ls = new List<SelectListItem>();
        lm = (call database);
        foreach (var temp in lm)
        {
            ls.Add(new SelectListItem() { Text = temp.name, Value = temp.id });
        }
        return ls;
    }

Call the Dropdown:

@Html.DropDownListFor(x => x.Field, PathToController.GetDropDown())