ASP.NET MVC - Pass Additional ViewData to a Strongly-Typed Partial View

Question

I have a strongly-typed Partial View that takes a ProductImage and when it is rendered I would also like to provide it with some additional ViewData which I create dynamically in the containing page. How can I pass both my strongly typed object and my custom ViewData to the partial view with the RenderPartial call?

var index = 0;
foreach (var image in Model.Images.OrderBy(p => p.Order))
{
  Html.RenderPartial("ProductImageForm", image); // < Pass 'index' to partial
  index++;
}

Answer 1

I think this should work no?

ViewData["currentIndex"] = index;

Answer 2

Create another class which contains your strongly typed class.

Add your new stuff to the class and return it in the view.

Then in the view, ensure you inherit your new class and change the bits of code that will now be in error. namely the references to your fields.

Hope this helps. If not then let me know and I'll post specific code.

Answer 3

The easiest way to pass additional data is to add the data to the existing ViewData for the view as @Joel Martinez notes. However, if you don't want to pollute your ViewData, RenderPartial has a method that takes three arguments as well as the two-argument version you show. The third argument is a ViewDataDictionary. You can construct a separate ViewDataDictionary just for your partial containing just the extra data that you want to pass in.

Answer 4

RenderPartial takes another parameter that is simply a ViewDataDictionary. You're almost there, just call it like this:

Html.RenderPartial(
      "ProductImageForm", 
       image, 
       new ViewDataDictionary { { "index", index } }
);

Note that this will override the default ViewData that all your other Views have by default. If you are adding anything to ViewData, it will not be in this new dictionary that you're passing to your partial view.