Suggested approach to generate pages based on attributes on properties in model in ASP.Net MVC!

Question

Hi,

We need to generate forms for Create/Display/Edit on our website. The requirement is that these need to be metadata driven. We will have properties on our Model attributed with the type of control to generate for that property.

[RenderAs("DatePicker", Order = 1)]
public DateTime DateOfBirth{get; set;} 

The idea is to have templates for each of these like Date-Picker.ascx, etc in the SharedFolder
We need to generate around 25 such forms and are looking for a reuseable way of accomplishing this. What would be the best way to handle validations with this (basic validations like required, less than, greater than, etc)? What do you suggest for dependent field validations (less than field, greater than field)? Does this sound sensible?

Thanks

Answer 1

You are mixing Model and View concept. Why do you need MVC THEN?

On practice, you will face situations when Admin need some minor changes compared to regular user, and it will be hard to support in cases when form is generated using attributes.

I am not saying this is best, but we decided to stick with form concept and every form able to decide WHAT to show and HOW to show. And we defined number of helper methods like RenderDatePicker which do all dirty work.

Answer 2

Check out ASP.Net Dynamic Data. It is pretty much what you are looking for. (And if you can use .Net 4.0 then you should be able to use MVC, webforms, and DynamicData all in one project.)

Answer 3

It sounds like you're looking for MVC 2 templates.

Use DisplayForModel for read only views and EditorForModel for create/edit forms built from the metadata in your view model. Use Data Annotations attributes to decorate the view model with validation rules and other rendering information (label, custom template to use, etc.).

Here's a quick intro video to MVC 2 templates.