how to get selected value for Kendo DropDownList

Question

I can't figure out how to determine which item is selected in the my kendo dropdownlist. My view defines it's model as:

@model KendoApp.Models.SelectorViewModel

The ViewModel is defined as:

public class SelectorViewModel
{
    //I want to set this to the selected item in the view
    //And use it to set the initial item in the DropDownList
    public int EncSelected { get; set; }

    //contains the list if items for the DropDownList
    //SelectionTypes contains an ID and Description
    public IEnumerable<SelectionTypes> ENCTypes
}

and in My view I have:

@(Html.Kendo().DropDownList()
                    .Name("EncounterTypes")
                    .DataTextField("Description")
                    .DataValueField("ID")
                    .BindTo(Model.ENCTypes)
                    .SelectedIndex(Model.EncSelected)
                )

This DropDownList contains the values I expect but I need to pass the selected value back to my controller when the user clicks the submit button. Everything works fine except I don't have access to which item was selected from the controller's [HttpPost] action. So, how do i assign the DropDownList's value to a hidden form field so it will be available to the controller?

Answer 1

For anyone who found this wondering how to get the selected value in JavaScript, this is the correct answer:

$("#EncounterTypes").data("kendoDropDownList").value();

From the documentation: http://docs.telerik.com/kendo-ui/api/javascript/ui/dropdownlist#methods-value