ASP.NET MVC View User Control - how to set IDs?

Question

I need a dropdown list on my page that will allow a user to select their state. Since this is probably a control that will be used elsewhere, I thought it would be a good idea

Answer 1

Corey is on to the right solution. I think declaring specific Model objects for your view makes the views VERY simple and as a side bonus makes them dirt easy to test.

So instead of just passing the ID as the object, you'd probably want to create your own Model object to pass in.

It could look something like this:

public class StateDropDownPresentationModel
{
    public string DropDownID { get; set; }
    public string SelectedState { get; set; }
}

Obviously, keep adding whatever you need to this model to make your view correct.

Then, you could call it like this:

<%= Html.RenderPartial("/someDirectory/SomeControl.ascx", new StateDropDownPresentationModel { DropDownID = "MyID", SelectedState = "IL" } %>

Then just make sure you put in checks for things like ID being null/blank (that should probably throw an error) and SelectedState being null/blank.