Question

I want to set disable attribute based on a condition for Html.TextBoxFor in asp.net MVC like below

@Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.ExpireDate, new { style = "width: 70px;", maxlength = "10", id = "expire-date" disabled = (Model.ExpireDate == null ? "disable" : "") })

This helper has two output disabled=”disabled ” or disabled=””. both of theme make the textbox disable.

I want to disable the textbox if Model.ExpireDate == null else I want to enable it

Answer 1

The valid way is:

disabled="disabled"

Browsers also might accept disabled="" but I would recommend you the first approach.

Now this being said I would recommend you writing a custom HTML helper in order to encapsulate this disabling functionality into a reusable piece of code:

using System;
using System.Linq.Expressions;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Mvc;
using System.Web.Mvc.Html;
using System.Web.Routing;

public static class HtmlExtensions
{
    public static IHtmlString MyTextBoxFor<TModel, TProperty>(
        this HtmlHelper<TModel> htmlHelper, 
        Expression<Func<TModel, TProperty>> expression, 
        object htmlAttributes, 
        bool disabled
    )
    {
        var attributes = new RouteValueDictionary(htmlAttributes);
        if (disabled)
        {
            attributes["disabled"] = "disabled";
        }
        return htmlHelper.TextBoxFor(expression, attributes);
    }
}

which you could use like this:

@Html.MyTextBoxFor(
    model => model.ExpireDate, 
    new { 
        style = "width: 70px;", 
        maxlength = "10", 
        id = "expire-date" 
    }, 
    Model.ExpireDate == null
)

---

and you could bring even more intelligence into this helper:

public static class HtmlExtensions
{
    public static IHtmlString MyTextBoxFor<TModel, TProperty>(
        this HtmlHelper<TModel> htmlHelper,
        Expression<Func<TModel, TProperty>> expression,
        object htmlAttributes
    )
    {
        var attributes = new RouteValueDictionary(htmlAttributes);
        var metaData = ModelMetadata.FromLambdaExpression(expression, htmlHelper.ViewData);
        if (metaData.Model == null)
        {
            attributes["disabled"] = "disabled";
        }
        return htmlHelper.TextBoxFor(expression, attributes);
    }
}

so that now you no longer need to specify the disabled condition:

@Html.MyTextBoxFor(
    model => model.ExpireDate, 
    new { 
        style = "width: 70px;", 
        maxlength = "10", 
        id = "expire-date" 
    }
)