Question

I am going to develop a search page where I will have multiple fields comming from differenet models (entity). Also, I have multiple DropDownLists on the same screen whose values will be populated from a lookup table.

I would like to know (in this scenario) what is the best approach. Should I create a ViewModel and pass that model to my view? Or do I need a different approach?

But I am not sure how I should handle my dropdown field, which is populating from lookup table.

Also, on submitting the page, how should I get those values in my next search details screen to get all the records from db?

I am using MVC3 with EF 4.2

Answer 1

Having a ViewModel with necessary properties ( your search criteria) is the way to go.
When you do a HttpGet action for your search load all datas from the look up tables and load to the properties ( ex : States etc..).

  public ActionResult Search()
  {
    SearchViewModel objVM=new SearchViewModel();
    objVM.States=MyService.GetStates();
    objVM.Type=MyService.GetUserTypes();    
    return objVM.    
  }

  [HttpPost]  
  public ActionResult Search(SearchViewModel objVM)
  {
      if(ModelState.IsValid)
      {
         //Go for the search and return results

      } 
      return View(objVm); 
  }