I am looking to use asp.net MVC for new project. I looked at different examples at asp.net and over web. I still didn't get answer to , what is the best way to combine output of different models into a single view. For example my home page will contain catgories, locations, snapshots of recent posts. These will come from three different models. Do I create single viewdata with everything in it and messup within view to place content accordingly ?
3 Answers
You create a ViewModel for your homepage... something like...
public class MyHomepageViewModel
{
public Categories MyCategories { get; set; }
public Locations MyLocations { get; set; }
public Snapshots MySnapshots { get; set; }
public MyHomepageViewModel(Categories categories, Locations locations, Snapshots snapshots)
{
MyCategories = categories;
MyLocations = locations;
MySnapshots = snapshots;
}
}
and then you strongly type your homepage to this view model and you will have access to everything that you need in your view =)
3 Comments
kdmurray
Thanks Jon... now I actually get what a ViewModel is.
George
This is replacing a controller right? If so, where does it go in the asp.net folder structure? In a new folder called ViewModels?
Jon Erickson
@George... this would not replace a controller, this would be used by a controller's action to populate a view, you can put it anywhere in the folder structure, I'd usually put them in a ViewModels folder.
You need View Model for this:
public class HomeViewModel {
public IList<Category> Categories;
public IList<Location> Locations;
public IList<Snapshot> Snapshots;
public IList<Post> Recent;
}
Your View must be strongly-typed:
<%@ Page Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage<HomeViewModel>" %>
<!-- <% var categories = Model.Categories %> -->
Comments
I usually create one view model class that aggregates multiple data model classes in this scenario.
I believe view and data should be two different set of objects because sometimes you need to do data trasformations (e.g. formating a decimal from a data model class to a string in currency format in view model) in the controller class before it is sent to the view.
