Question

I have a mvc web project where I try to render a list of checkbox with the EditorFor extension method but the result just display the ids as text instead of of a list of checkbox.

Here is the code in the view:

  <div id="permissions" class="tab-body">
     @Html.Label("Permissions :")
     @Html.EditorFor(x => Model.Permissions)
     <br />
     <br />
  </div>

This is the property ‘Permissions’ of the object ‘Model’:

  [DisplayName("Permissions")]
  public List<PermissionViewModel> Permissions { get; set; }

And this is the PermissionViewModel:

public class PermissionViewModel
{
public int Id { get; set; }

  public UserGroupPermissionType Name { get; set; }

  public string Description { get; set; }

  public bool IsDistributable { get; set; }

  public bool IsGranted { get; set; }

}

And finally, this is the result in the browser:

<div id="permissions" class="tab-body" style="display: block;">
<label for="Permissions_:">Permissions :</label>
192023242526272829
<br>
<br>
</div>

Have you any idea why the html is not generated correctly? Missing dependencies? Conflict in dependencies? Web.Config configured not correctly?

Thank you very much for you help.

Answer 1

It looks as if you need to create an editor template for the “PermissionViewModel” class, as right now, MVC seems to be confused with how to make an editor for such a complex object.

In the folder where the view is being served from, add a folder called “EditorTemplates”

Then add a new partial view in that folder. The code should be:

@model IEnumberable<PermissionViewModel>
@foreach(var permission in Model)
@Html.EditorFor(x => x.Name)
@Html.EditorFor(x => x.Description)
@Html.EditorFor(x => x.IsDistributable)
@Html.EditorFor(x => x.IsGranted)

You will need to create an Editor Template for the Name class as well.

So now in your view you can call

<div id="permissions" class="tab-body">
 @Html.Label("Permissions :")
 @Html.EditorFor(x => Model.Permissions)
 <br />
 <br />
</div>

And MVC will know to use the editor template you just made for your permission.

A good resource for learning about editor templates is here: http://bradwilson.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/aspnet-mvc-2-templates-part-1-introduction.html