Handling Multiple Submit Buttons - asp.net-mvc-2

Question

I Have a Strongly typed user control which i use for Searching a certain list of objects.
the following code shows the user control,
<%# Control Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl<PeercoreCRM.ViewModels.CustomerFilterViewModel>" %>
<div style="width: 100%;vertical-align:top;background-color:White">
<fieldset>
<legend>Criteria</legend>
<table cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<td style="width: 100px">
<div class="editor-label">
<%: Html.LabelFor(m => m.LeadName) %>
</div>
</td>
<td>
<div class="editor-field">
<%: Html.TextBoxFor(m => m.LeadName) %>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 60px">
<div class="editor-label">
<%: Html.LabelFor(m => m.CustomerCode) %>
</div>
</td>
<td>
<div class="editor-field">
<%: Html.TextBoxFor(m => m.CustomerCode)%>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<input type="submit" name="btnSearch" value="Search" />
<input type="submit" name="btnCancel" value="Cancel" />
</td>
<td>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</fieldset>
</div>
In the View, I show this user control conditionally using the following code snippet,
<% using (Html.BeginForm("CustomerList", "Customer", new { isFiltered = Model.FilterViewModel.IsFiltered }, FormMethod.Post))
{
%>
<% if (Model.FilterViewModel.IsVisible) Html.RenderPartial("ListFilterUserControl", Model.FilterViewModel); %>
<% } %>
I have put the Form in the rendering page as this control is used in other views and thereby calling other action methods in different controllers.
I have the following method signature in my controller action method,
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult CustomerList(CustomerFilterViewModel filterModel)
{
bool filtered = filterModel.IsDirty? FilterCustomers(filterModel):false;
Session["CurrentPageNumber"] = null;
return RedirectToAction("CustomerList", new { isFiltered = filtered || filterModel.IsFiltered });
}
My problem is, with this implementation, how can i separately identify which button is clicked ("Search" or "Cancel") and to write the code depending on that.

Answer 1

To identify the button that has been passed in, you can group your buttons by adding a name attribute to them:
<input name="button" type="submit" value="Search" />
<input name="button" type="submit" value="Cancel" />
then, add a variable that is passed into your post method with the same name of the buttons (in this case "button") like this:
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult CustomerList(string button, CustomerFilterViewModel filterModel)
{
if(button.Equals("Search"))
{
bool filtered = filterModel.IsDirty? FilterCustomers(filterModel):false;
Session["CurrentPageNumber"] = null;
return RedirectToAction("CustomerList", new { isFiltered = filtered || filterModel.IsFiltered });
} else {
if(button.Equals("Cancel")) {
//perform cancel
}
}
}