Question

I am using KendoUI on MVC4.

I have a DropDownList bound to a model property that is a empty string:

 @(Html.Kendo().DropDownListFor(model => model.AppUserStatus)
                                      .Name("userStatusDropDownList")
                                      .DataTextField("Text")
                                      .HtmlAttributes(new {style = "width:100%;"})
                                      .DataValueField("Value")
                                      .BindTo(@ViewBag.StatusList))

model.AppUserStatus is a string that is empty by default.

After the user selects a new item , or leaves the selected item as the default item (index 0) and posts the form back, the model.AppUserStatus is empty still, even though all the other fields are correctly bound:

    [HttpPost]
    [ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
    public ActionResult Update(EditUserViewModel model)
    {
        model.AppUserStatus ***** IS Null always, all other fields are good
        return View("EditUser", model);
    }

Answer 1

You don’t need to set Name(“userStatusDropDownList”) property for control.

Remove it and the name will be auto generated properly – i.e. #AppUserStatus.

This Name method also controls the name by the value that is posted to the server – the name attribute of the input element which is posted.