How to write a simple Html.DropDownListFor()?

Question

See this MSDN article and an example usage here on Stack Overflow.

Let's say that you have the following Linq/POCO class:

public class Color
{
    public int ColorId { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

And let's say that you have the following model:

public class PageModel 
{
   public int MyColorId { get; set; }
}

And, finally, let's say that you have the following list of colors. They could come from a Linq query, from a static list, etc.:

public static IEnumerable<Color> Colors = new List<Color> { 
    new Color {
        ColorId = 1,
        Name = "Red"
    },
    new Color {
        ColorId = 2,
        Name = "Blue"
    }
};

In your view, you can create a drop down list like so:

<%= Html.DropDownListFor(n => n.MyColorId, 
                         new SelectList(Colors, "ColorId", "Name")) %>

<%: 
     Html.DropDownListFor(
           model => model.Color, 
           new SelectList(
                  new List<Object>{ 
                       new { value = 0 , text = "Red"  },
                       new { value = 1 , text = "Blue" },
                       new { value = 2 , text = "Green"}
                    },
                  "value",
                  "text",
                   Model.Color
           )
        )
%>

or you can write no classes, put something like this directly to the view.

Avoid of lot of fat fingering by starting with a Dictionary in the Model

namespace EzPL8.Models
{
    public class MyEggs
    {
        public Dictionary<int, string> Egg { get; set; }

        public MyEggs()
        {
            Egg = new Dictionary<int, string>()
            {
                { 0, "No Preference"},
                { 1, "I hate eggs"},
                { 2, "Over Easy"},
                { 3, "Sunny Side Up"},
                { 4, "Scrambled"},
                { 5, "Hard Boiled"},
                { 6, "Eggs Benedict"}
            };

    }


    }

In the View convert it to a list for display

@Html.DropDownListFor(m => m.Egg.Keys,
                         new SelectList(
                             Model.Egg, 
                             "Key", 
                             "Value"))

Hi here is how i did it in one Project :

     @Html.DropDownListFor(model => model.MyOption,                
                  new List<SelectListItem> { 
                       new SelectListItem { Value = "0" , Text = "Option A" },
                       new SelectListItem { Value = "1" , Text = "Option B" },
                       new SelectListItem { Value = "2" , Text = "Option C" }
                    },
                  new { @class="myselect"})

I hope it helps Somebody. Thanks

Or if it's from a database context you can use

@Html.DropDownListFor(model => model.MyOption, db.MyOptions.Select(x => new SelectListItem { Text = x.Name, Value = x.Id.ToString() }))