Help with asp.net mvc and Select List Dropdown

Question

I want to build this dropdowns with these specific attributes.. How can I do this? Im using LinqToSql. Each Company has employees

<select name="companies" id="companies" class="selectable">
    <option value="">-- select --</option>
    <option value="1" title="company1">Company1</option>
    <option value="2" title="company2">company2</option>
    <option value="3" title="company3">company3</option>
    <option value="4" title="company4">company4</option>
</select>


<select name="employees" id="employees" class="selectable">
    <option value="">-- select --</option>
    <option value="1" class="company1">John</option>
    <option value="2" class="company1">michale</option>
    <option value="4" class="company2">brian</option>
    <option value="5" class="company2">mark</option>
    <option value="6" class="company3">daniel</option>
    <option value="7" class="company3">rose</option>
</select>

Do I have to build my own helper? please help. this all comes from Database and I have Company and Employee with LINQTOSQL classes

Answer 1

As far as I know yes... The default html helper doesn't give you the ability to set the title or the class attribute on the options...

I would recommend building your own (or looking around to see if someone else has done one that solves this problem).

If you do build your own I would use lambda's (anonymous linq delegates) to capture/define the attributes your are after for the options. That way you can reuse it over and over. Let me know if you need help with this.

Answer 2

In asp.net MVC you already have a lot of built in Helpers. For the dropdown I would do something like this :

<%= Html.DropDownList("<name>", "<selectlist collection>", new { @class = "<css class>", title = "<title>" }) %>