Question

They both look visually similar on the web page, but the HTML for each of them is fairly different:

<input id="TEST" name="TEST" type="text" value="this one's filled in, but editor isn't">
<input class="text-box single-line" id="TEST" name="TEST" type="text" value="">

The docs say Returns an HTML input element for each property in the object that is represented by the expression. for Html.Editor

While Html.TextBox says Returns a text input element by using the specified HTML helper and the name of the form field.

Does that mean you pass a model’s string name to Html.Editor and then it’ll create a text input for each of it’s properties, while a Html.TextBox‘ll just be a dumb text input with nothing else behind the scenes?

Answer 1

HTML.Textbox:

Returns a text input element by using the specified HTML helper and the name of the form field.

HTML.Editor:

This method generates different HTML markup depending on the data type of the property that is being rendered, and according to whether the property is marked with certain attributes.

• If the property is typed as a primitive type (integer, string, and so on), the method renders an HTML input element for a text box.

• If a property is marked with a data-type attribute or a UIHintAttribute attribute, the attribute specifies the markup that is generated for the property. For example, if the property is marked with the MultilineText attribute, the method generates markup for a multi-line text box.

• If the object contains multiple properties, for each property the method generates a string that consists of markup for the property name and an input element to edit the property value.
• If the property is a boolean then it will load a checkbox.