Question

I have a View that gets some bits of data via Action methods that return JSON data.
Depending on the combination of selected options, the user can fill some fields in a page.
What is the best way to pass the data back to a controller, in order to be saved?

• The fields that contain data vary on the options selected;
• I don’t have a ViewModel object with all fields bound to the View.

At the moment I have this:

@Ajax.BeginForm("MyAction", null, new AjaxOptions
            {
            }, new { @id = "SaveForm" } )
{
    .....
    @Html.RadioButton("SomeRadioButton", "bla", false, new { @id = "SomeRadioButton" })
    .....
    @Html.TextArea("SomeTextArea", new { @id = "SomeTextArea" })
    .....
    <a href="#" onclick="$('#SaveForm').submit();">Save</a>
}

How do I get all of those control values in the Action?

I can add something like:

public void MyAction(FormCollection form)
{
    .........
}

But I don’t really like this option.
What’s the cleanest way to implement this?

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

You could define a view model:

public class MyViewModel
{
    public string SomeRadioButton { get; set; }
    public string SomeTextArea { get; set; }

    ... 
}

and then have your controller action take this view model as argument and leave the default model binder do its job:

[HttpPost]
public void MyAction(MyViewModel model)
{
    ...
}

I would also take advantage of this view model in the view in order to use strongly typed versions of the helpers:

@Ajax.BeginForm("MyAction", null, new AjaxOptions { }, new { @id = "SaveForm" })
{
    @Html.RadioButtonFor(x => x.SomeRadioButton)
    ...
    @Html.TextAreaFor(x => x.SomeTextArea)
    ...
    <button type="submit">Save</button>
}