I have searched but have not been successful in getting a default value selected in a dropdownlist.
The following property does not reside in my MVC project, it is in my Core. Therefore, I didn't want to reference the System.Web.Mvc and used a Dictionary instead.
[Display(Name = "Time Zone")]
public int TimeZone { get; set; }
public Dictionary<string, string> TimeZoneOptions
{
get
{
Dictionary<string, string> d = new Dictionary<string, string>();
d.Add("(GMT -10:00) Hawaii", "-10");
d.Add("(GMT -9:00) Alaska", "-9");
d.Add("(GMT -8:00) Pacific Time", "-8");
d.Add("(GMT -7:00) Mountain Time", "-7");
d.Add("(GMT -6:00) Central Time", "-6");
d.Add("(GMT -5:00) Eastern Time", "-5");
d.Add("Unknown", "0");
return d;
}
}
I created a CreateViewModel in my MVC project so that I could convert the above Dictionary into a SelectList with a preselected Default value.
public class CreateViewModel
{
public SelectList GetUserTimeZoneList(string selectedValue)
{
return new SelectList(new BankUser().TimeZoneOptions, "Value", "Key", selectedValue);
}
}
My view (notice the "-7" as the default value being passed)
<div class="form-group">
@Html.LabelFor(model => model.TimeZone, new { @class = "control-label col-md-2" })
<div class="col-md-10">
@Html.DropDownListFor(model => model.TimeZone, new CreateViewModel().GetUserTimeZoneList("-7"), new { @class = "form-control" })
@Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.TimeZone)
</div>
</div>
The Results
<select class="form-control" data-val="true" data-val-number="The field Time Zone must be a number." data-val-required="The Time Zone field is required." id="TimeZone" name="TimeZone">
<option value="-10">(GMT -10:00) Hawaii</option>
<option value="-9">(GMT -9:00) Alaska</option>
<option value="-8">(GMT -8:00) Pacific Time</option>
<option value="-7">(GMT -7:00) Mountain Time</option>
<option value="-6">(GMT -6:00) Central Time</option>
<option value="-5">(GMT -5:00) Eastern Time</option>
<option selected="selected" value="0">Unknown</option>
</select>
As you can see, "Mountain Time" was not selected. It always selects "Unknown". Any advice on what I am doing wrong?
It appears I overlooked an important aspect of the DropDownListFor helper. The first parameter of the control is actually the value that will be selected by default.
@Html.DropDownListFor(model => model.TimeZone, new SelectList(Model.TimeZoneOptions, "Value", "Key"), new { @class = "form-control" })
So when I pass the model to the view, it should be prepopulated with the correct default value like this:
public ActionResult Create()
{
BankUser user = new BankUser();
user.TimeZone = -7;
return View(user);
}
Therefore, I no longer need the original CreateViewModel class.