As seen in the section on forms, Vici MVC will render HTML controls bound to fields in a class. This is done by adding an attribute to a field, which tells the framework what control to render and how it should look/behave.

You can also create controls explicitly (in code) and render them in the view. For example, to render a text box created from code:

TextControl control = new TextControl("Name");

control.HandlePostback(); // if there is a postback, the 
                          // contents of the textbox is
                          // stored in the control's
                          // Value property

if (IsPost())
{
    string postedName = control.Value;

    // Do something
}
else
{
    control.Value = "John Doe"; // initial contents
}

ViewData["NameBox"] = control; // pass it to the view

The view then looks like:

Name: [[NameBox]]

Built-in controls

All built-in controls have the following properties in common:

TextBoxControl

Renders a text box (<input type="text"/>).

Specific properties:

DropdownControl

Renders a dropdown box (<select>).

Specific properties:

Filling the dropdown list

There are 2 properties available for specifying the items to display in the dropdown control: DataSource and Items. Either or both can be used. The behavior is as follows:

• When setting the DataSource, the Items list is cleared. This means that you should never set the DataSource property after manipulating the Items list.
• When retrieving the Items list, the list is populated with data from the data source
• It is possible to add items or remove items from the list

The Items list is of type List<Item>. The Item class has only 2 properties: Key and Value, both of type object. Make sure that you store the right types in the item list.

When handling a postback, it is not necessary to populate the control again. Just retrieve the Value property.

Setting the Value property can be done anytime, even before items are added to the list. The matching of the value with an item from the list is done at render time, not when setting the Value property.

HiddenControl

Renders a hidden control (<input type="hidden" />)

There is just one property:

CheckboxControl

Renders a checkbox control (<input type="checkbox"/>)

Properties:

MemoControl

Renders a textarea control (<textarea>)

Properties:

RadioButtonControl

Renders a checkbox control (<input type="checkbox"/>)

Properties:

Built-in form field attributes

For mapping fields to controls in a form, you have to add form field attributes to a field. This is discussed in the [[Projects:Mvc:UserGuide:FormBasics|forms] section.

The following built-in attributes are available:

[FormTextBox]

To be completed

[FormDropdown]

To be completed

[FormPassword]

To be completed

[FormEMail]

To be completed

[FormHidden]

To be completed

[FormCheckbox]

To be completed

[FormDate]

To be completed

[FormMemo]

To be completed

[FormRadioButton]

To be completed