ASP.NET MVC dropdown with a default empty option

Question

Is there a way to include a default empty option (or with text) if there is no selected value for a dropdownlist?

Answer 1

In general you add an empty value as the first item in the dropdown.

Answer 2

I believe this post answers your question.

Answer 3

The below will prepend string.Empty to the SelectList (or IEnumerable) specified in the ViewData["Menu"] item. The select will have id and name MenuID.

<%= Html.DropDownList( "MenuID",
                      (IEnumerable<SelectItemList>)ViewData["Menu"],
                      string.Empty ) %>

EDIT: This works with ASP.NET MVC RC1. Beta had slightly different ordering for the parameters. I would call that a breaking change.