How to write a simple Html.DropDownListFor()?

Question

I'm new in ASP.NET MVC 2 and I'd like to write a very simple dropdown list which gives static options. For example I'd like to provide choices between "Red", "Blue", and "Green".

Answer 1

msdn: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee703573.aspx

an example usage: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1916462/dropdownlistfor-in-editortemplate-not-selecting-value

Let's say that you have the following Linq/POCO class:

public class Color
{
    public int ColorId { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

And let's say that you have the following model:

public class PageModel 
{
   public int MyColorId { get; set; }
}

And, finally, let's say that you have the following list of colors. They could come from a Linq query, from a static list, etc.:

public static IEnumerable<Color> Colors = new List<Color> { 
    new Color {
        ColorId = 1,
        Name = "Red"
    },
    new Color {
        ColorId = 2,
        Name = "Blue"
    }
};

In your view, you can create a drop down list like so:

<%= Html.DropDownListFor(n => n.MyColorId, new SelectList(Colors, "ColorId", "Name")) %>

Answer 2

<%: 
     Html.DropDownListFor(
           model => model.Color, 
           new SelectList(
                  new List<Object>{ 
                       new { value = 0 , text = "Red"  },
                       new { value = 1 , text = "Blue" },
                       new { value = 2 , text = "Green"}
                    },
                  "value",
                  "text",
                   Model.Color
           )
        )
%>

or you can write no classes, put something like this directly to the view.