MVC Partial Views issue

Question

I'm very new to MVC and I'm trying to figure out if there is a better way to do this. I have a textbox for the user to put in their search, then based on that search I am displaying some results below said search box. I am trying to avoid having so much code logic in my view and would like to know if there is a better way of handling this. Here is my existing code, where based on what the value of "Model.Results" is it will return one of 3 partial views or a button if the rest of my logic passes:

@section CustomerPrefixInfo
{
    @if (Model.Results == PrefixSearch.SearchResults.CustomerFound)
    {
        @Html.Partial("_CustomerPrefixInfo")
    }
    @if (Model.Results == PrefixSearch.SearchResults.PrefixResultsFound)
    {
        @Html.Partial("_PrefixResults")
    }
    @if (Model.Results == PrefixSearch.SearchResults.AnimalsFound)
    {
        @Html.Partial("_AnimalSearchResults")
    }
    @if (Model.Results == PrefixSearch.SearchResults.ValidNewPrefix)
    {
        using (Html.BeginForm("Index", "PrefixManagement", new { prefix = Model.AnimalPrefix.Prefix, dbPrefix = Model.AnimalPrefix.DbPrefix }))
        {
            <fieldset>
                <input id="btnReservePrefix" type="submit" value="Reserve Prefix" />
            </fieldset>
        }
    }
}

I would like to put this inside a controller so that it just returns the view that is to be displayed, then just display that view on the page. Aftering doing some rearch I thought using Ajax.BeginForm with the InsertionMode set to InsertAfter would do the trick:

@using (Ajax.BeginForm("GenericSearch", "Home", FormMethod.Post, new AjaxOptions { InsertionMode = InsertionMode.InsertAfter, UpdateTargetId = "searchResults" }))
{
    <fieldset>
        <input id="btnPrefixSearch" type="submit" value="Prefix Search/Validate"/>
        @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Input)
    </fieldset>
    <div id="searchResults">

    </div>
}

My GenericSearch Action then uses a switch to decide which partial view to return:

public ActionResult GenericSearch(PrefixSearch prefixSearch)
{
    //some database logic here to get the results
    switch (prefixSearch.Results)
    {
        case PrefixSearch.SearchResults.CustomerFound:
            return PartialView("_CustomerPrefixInfo", prefixSearch);
        case PrefixSearch.SearchResults.PrefixResultsFound:
            return PartialView("_PrefixResults", prefixSearch);
        case PrefixSearch.SearchResults.AnimalsFound:
            return PartialView("_AnimalSearchResults", prefixSearch);
        default:
            return null;
     }
}

But when I tried this it puts the partial view on a new page.

here is one of my partial views (they are all 3 mostly identical to this)

@model MVC_Test_Project.Models.PrefixSearch

@{
    ViewBag.Title = "PrefixResults";
 }

@{
    Layout = null;
 }
<table class="table">
    <tr>
        <th>
            @Html.DisplayNameFor(model => model.PrefixResults[0].Prefix)
        </th>
        <th>
            @Html.DisplayNameFor(model => model.PrefixResults[0].CustomerCount)
        </th>
        <th>
            @Html.DisplayNameFor(model => model.PrefixResults[0].Link)
        </th>
    </tr>

@foreach (var item in Model.PrefixResults)
{
    <tr>
        <td>
            @Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.Prefix)
        </td>
        <td>
            @Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.CustomerCount)
        </td>
        <td>
            <a href="@item.Link">edit</a>               
        </td>
    </tr>
}
 </table>

Any help would be appreciated!

Edit Just a helpful hint in case anybody makes the same stupid mistake I did, make sure your bundles are called before your scripts.

@Styles.Render("~/Content/css")
@Scripts.Render("~/bundles/modernizr")
@Scripts.Render("~/bundles/jquery")
@Scripts.Render("~/bundles/jqueryval")
@Scripts.Render("~/bundles/bootstrap")
<script src="/Scripts/jquery.unobtrusive-ajax.js"></script>
<script src="/Scripts/jquery.unobtrusive-ajax.min.js"></script>

I had added in those last 2 lines when it was mentioned to use those, but they were above my bundles....and thus the ajax didn't work because of it. Thanks for everybodies help, all is well now! --Joseph

Answer 1

I would like to put this inside a controller so that it just returns the view

Seems pretty straight forward:

ViewModel:

public class MyModel
{
  public string PageToRender { get; set; }
}

Controller Action

public ActionResult DoLogic()
{
  //var Results = ?? as The ENum

  switch(Results)
  {
    PrefixSearch.SearchResults.CustomerFound:
      model.PageToRender = "_CustomerPrefixInfo";
    // etc etc
  }    

  return View(model);
}

View:

 @{if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(model.PageToRender))
   Html.RenderPartial(model.PageToRender);}

Although I would probably decorate the Enum:

public enum SearchResults
{
  [Display(Name="_CustomerPrefixInfo")]
  CustomerFound
}

And then there is no switch statement, you just grab the enum value display attribute's name value.