Question

I have been playing around with MVC 3 and looking at populating dropdownlists. I have seen a few examples online that recommend using view models, so here is my first attempt. My code seems to work, but can anybody tell me if this is the correct way to do this?

My model :

public class ContactGP
{
    public int TeamID { get; set; }

    [Required(ErrorMessage = "Please select a Team Name")]
    [DataType(DataType.Text)]
    [DisplayName("Team Name")]
    public string TeamName { get; set; }
}

My view model :

public class ContactGPViewModel
{
    public string SelectedTeamID { get; set; }
    public IEnumerable<Team> Teams { get; set; }
}

My controller :

public IEnumerable<Team> PopulateTeamsDropDownList()
    {
        IEnumerable<Team> lstTeams = _Base.DataRepository.GetTeams();

        return lstTeams;
    }

    public ActionResult ContactGP()
    {
        var model = new ContactGPViewModel
        {
            Teams = PopulateTeamsDropDownList()
        };

        return View(model);
    }

And my view :

<p>
    @Html.DropDownListFor(
        x => x.SelectedTeamID, 
        new SelectList(Model.Teams, "TeamID", "TeamName")
    )
</p>

Answer 1

Your code seems correct. You have defined a view model containing the necessary properties your view will require, filled it up in the controller and passed to this strongly typed view.

I have only a minor remark on the following line inside the PopulateTeamsDropDownList method:

_Base.DataRepository.GetTeams();

I hope you have abstracted this repository with interfaces (or abstract classes) and used DI in order to inject some concrete implementation into your controller. This will weaken the coupling between your controller and the way data is accessed and to simplify unit testing the different layers of your application in isolation.