asp.net - @Html.EditorForModel() Dropdown

Question

I am working on MVC4 , using @Html.EditorForModel() , it is showing dropdownlist as a text box, I want to show Dropdown list by setting any attribute and overriding template. Please share me MVC4 example for this.

@model Models.Employee

@{
    ViewBag.Title = "Create";
}

<h2>Create</h2>

@using (Html.BeginForm()) {
    @Html.AntiForgeryToken()
    @Html.ValidationSummary(true)

    <fieldset>
        <legend>Employee</legend>
        @Html.EditorForModel()
        <p>
            <input type="submit" value="Create" />
        </p>
    </fieldset>
}

<div>
    @Html.ActionLink("Back to List", "Index")
</div>

@section Scripts {
    @Scripts.Render("~/bundles/jqueryval")
}

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You could define a view model that will represent a dropdown:

public class ItemsViewModel
{
    public string SelectedValue { get; set; }

    public IEnumerable<SelectListItem> Values { get; set; }
}

which will be used in your main view model:

public class MyViewModel
{
    public ItemsViewModel DropDown1 { get; set; }
    public ItemsViewModel DropDown2 { get; set; }
    ...
}

Now all that's left is write a custom editor template for the ItemsViewModel which should be placed in ~/Views/Shared/EditorTemplates/ItemsViewModel.cshtml. Notice that the name and location of the template is important:

@model ItemViewModel
@Html.DropDownListFor(x => x.SelectedValue, Model.Values)

and that's pretty much all it takes.