Question

I have an action that creates a List and returns it to my view..

public ActionResult GetCustomers()
    {
        return PartialView("~/Views/Shared/DisplayTemplates/Customers.cshtml", UserQueries.GetCustomers(SiteInfo.Current.Id));
    }

And in the “~/Views/Shared/DisplayTemplates/Customers.cshtml” view I have the following:

@model IEnumerable<FishEye.Models.CustomerModel>
@Html.DisplayForModel("Customer")

Then I have in the “~/Views/Shared/DisplayTemplates/Customer.cshtml” view:

@model FishEye.Models.CustomerModel
@Model.Profile.FirstName

I am getting the error:

The model item passed into the dictionary is of type System.Collections.Generic.List`1[Models.CustomerModel]', but this dictionary requires a model item of type 'Models.CustomerModel'.

Shouldn’t it display the Customer.cshtml for every item in the collection in the Customers.cshtml?

Help!

Answer 1

I am not sure why you are calling a partial view like this. If it is a Customer Specific view, why not put it under Views/Customer folder ? Remember ASP.NET MVC is more of Conventions. so i would always stick with the conventions (unless abosultely necessary to configure myself) to keep it simple.

To handle this situation, i would do it in this way,

a Customer and CustomerList model/Videmodel

public class CustomerList
{
    public List<Customer> Customers { get; set; }
    //Other Properties as you wish also
}

public class Customer
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

And in the action method, i would return an object of CustomerList class

CustomerList customerList = new CustomerList();
customerList.Customers = new List<Customer>();
customerList.Customers.Add(new Customer { Name = "Malibu" });
// you may replace the above manual adding with a db call.
return View("CustomerList", customerList);

Now there should be a view called CustomerList.cshtml under Views/YourControllerName/ folder. That view should look like this

@model CustomerList
<p>List of Customers</p>
@Html.DisplayFor(x=>x.Customers)

Have a view called Customer.cshtml under Views/Shared/DisplayTemplates with this content

@model Customer
<h2>@Model.Name</h2>

This will give you the desired output.