Question

I’m learning ASP.NET MVC3 and doing an application with CMS capabilities – but have run into some problems.

The basic idea is that all pages are connected to a pagetype, which in turn have a set of properties connected to it.

Works great if I’m only using string values, but I want to be able to type all properties (String, LongString, XhtmlString, Number and TrueFalse).

This is my models that I have come up with.

public class Page
{
    public int PageId { get; set; }
    public int PageTypeId { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }

    public PageType PageType { get; set; }

    public List<PropertyValues> Properties { get; set; }
}

public class PageType
{
    public int PageTypeId { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string Description { get; set; }

    public string Controller { get; set; }
    public string Action { get; set; }

    public List<PropertyDefinition> Properties { get; set; }
}

public class PropertyDefinition
{
    public int PropertyDefinitionId { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string Type { get; set; } // NormalString, LongString, XhtmlString, Number, TrueFalse
}

public class PropertyValues
{
    public int PropertyValueId { get; set; }
    public int PageId { get; set; }
    public int PropertyDefinitionId { get; set; }

    public string ValueNormalString { get; set; } // input=text
    public string ValueLongString { get; set; } // textarea
    public string ValueXhtmlString { get; set; } // tinymce
    public int ValueNumber { get; set; } // input=text
    public bool ValueTrueFalse { get; set; } // input=checkbox

    public PropertyDefinition Definition { get; set; }
}

Basically, when I’m in my View i want to be able to call for example

@Page.Property["Whatever"]

and get the values. I’m stuck with the above, and don’t know how to proceed.

Edit:

With some help from the answer I got from Russ, I came up with the following – which works.
Don’t know if there is any better solution to the problem.

Any one have any suggestions on how to improve my solution?

Models:

public class Page
{
    public int PageId { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }

    public List<Property> Properties { get; set; }

    Dictionary<string, object> PageData = new Dictionary<string, object>();
    public object this[string name]
    {
        get
        {
            Property result = this.Properties.Find(
                delegate(Property p)
                {
                    return p.Name.Equals(name);
                });

            if (result != null)
            {
                switch (result.PropertyDefinition.Type)
                {
                    case "String":
                        return result.PropertyValue.ValueString;
                    case "LongString":
                        return result.PropertyValue.ValueLongString;
                    case "XHtmlString":
                        return result.PropertyValue.ValueXhtmlString;
                    case "Number":
                        return result.PropertyValue.ValueNumber;
                    case "Boolean":
                        return result.PropertyValue.ValueBoolean;
                    default:
                        return null;
                }
            }

            return null;
        }
        set
        {
            PageData[name] = value;
        }
    }
}

public class PropertyDefinition
{
    public int PropertyDefinitionId { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string Description { get; set; }
    public string Type { get; set; }
}

public class PropertyValue
{
    public int PropertyValueId { get; set; }
    public int PropertyId { get; set; }

    public string ValueString { get; set; }
    public string ValueLongString { get; set; }
    public string ValueXhtmlString { get; set; }
    public int ValueNumber { get; set; }
    public bool ValueBoolean { get; set; }
}

public class Property
{
    public int PropertyId { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string Caption { get; set; }

    public Page Page { get; set; }
    public PropertyDefinition PropertyDefinition { get; set; }
    public PropertyValue PropertyValue { get; set; }

    public int PageId { get; set; }
    public int PropertyDefinitionId { get; set; }
    public int PropertyValueId { get; set; }
}

Controller:

public class HomeController : Controller
{
    public String Index()
    {
        List<Property> properties = new List<Property>();
        Property propertyOne = new Property {
            PropertyId = 1,
            Name = "Title",
            Caption = "Page Title",
            TestPageId = 1,
            PropertyValue = new PropertyValue {
                PropertyValueId = 1,
                PropertyId = 1,
                ValueString = "This is the page title"
            },
            PropertyDefinition = new PropertyDefinition {
                PropertyDefinitionId = 1,
                Name = "String",
                Description = "String (< 255 characters)",
                Type = "String"
            }
        };
        properties.Add(propertyOne);

        Page CurrentPage = new Page
        {
            TestPageId = 1,
            Name = "Testpage",
            Properties = properties
        };


        return CurrentPage["Title"].ToString();
    }

}

Answer 1

Assuming that the model passed to the strongly typed View is of type Page, then it should simply be @Model.Properties. So your Razor view looks something like

@* set the model for the view to be of type Page *@
@model Page

@* to get the properties *@
@foreach(var prop in Model.Properties)
{
    <p>@prop.PageId</p>
}

In order to index into Properties collection using a string, I’d recommend using a Dictionary<string, PropertyDefinition> instead of a List<PropertyDefintion>, or make it a KeyedCollection<TKey, TItem>.

You might decide to create your own WebViewPage that adds a Page property by inheriting from System.Web.Mvc.WebViewPage and then setting this as the baseType in the web.config under the Views folder

<system.web.webPages.razor>
    <host factoryType="System.Web.Mvc.MvcWebRazorHostFactory, System.Web.Mvc, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" />
    <!-- Set your type here below -->
    <pages pageBaseType="System.Web.Mvc.WebViewPage">
        <namespaces>
            <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc" />
            <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Ajax" />
            <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Html" />
            <add namespace="System.Web.Routing" />
            <add namespace="System.Web.Configuration"/>
            <add namespace="System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations"/>
        </namespaces>
    </pages>
</system.web.webPages.razor>