MVC2 Add Collection of Object to Another Object - asp.net-mvc-2

Question

Not sure if this has been asked before, but I have an object (Restaurant) and I have a details view of that restaurant. On that details view, I want to have a list of cuisines that the restaurant offers. I want to also have a dropdownlist of the available cuisines and have the ability to click an "Add" button and it adds that cuisine to the Restaurant. I have a RestaurantCuisine table (using Entity Framework) that has a foreign key of the ID of the cuisine from a Cuisine table that has a primary key of ID.
So, now, my question, how do I do this? I sortof understand the concept behind the Create view and then the Create view post, but in this case, I'm not posting back the Restaurant object. So, how do I get the restaurant ID and the Cuisine ID so that I can add that to the restaurant cuisine collection?
Ok, so, now after investigating more, I believe I have asked the wrong question. My actual issue, is that I have a View that displays a Restaurant's details and I have a Details function in my controller for it. This works fine. The next step I want to do is have a dropdownlist with available Cuisines that this restaurant offers and have an 'Add' button next to it. And if you click on the 'Add' button, it adds the value of the item in the dropdownlist to the collection of cuisines setup in the Restaurant object.
Is this "easily" possible? I'm beginning to lose my faith in MVC2 :(
Ok, last try here. Let me ask this, does anyone know how to have a dropdownlist (I have now got this created) and have an "Add" button next to it, and get the selected value from that dropdownlist?

Answer 1

For those of you attempting to use VB.Net with MVC, I'm saying a prayer for you. It's rough. There are rarely any examples, and some syntax is not available that IS available in C#. So, as far as the answer to my original question. It seems as though it was my inexperience that caused the instant flare of the question.
After analying my problem, I figured out a way around it. First of all, let me clarify what I was attempting to do then explain what I did. The goal was to have an object (Restaurant in my case). And I wanted to have a list of properties (cuisines in my case) displayed on the Details view that I could assign to that object (Restaurant). The properties were cuisines that I had setup in a Cuisines table (CuisineId, Name, Description) and when you add a cuisine to a restaurant, it writes a record in another table RestaurantCuisine (RestaurantCuisineId, RestaurantId, CuisineId). So, getting the list of cuisines was the first task and have them display in a dropdownlist. That was done by creating a SelectList of cuisines in the Details view function by creating a CuisineRepository and calling a function that gets a list of all cuisines:
Dim cuiss As New CuisineRepository()
ViewData("Cuisines") = New SelectList(cuiss.FindAllCuisines().ToList(), "CuisineId", "Name")
Once you have this setup as a SelectList, it's easy to display that on the view by doing the following:
<h3>Cuisines:</h3>
<br />
<%= Html.DropDownList("Cuisines")%>
So, the problem after this was the real problem. I wanted to have an ActionLink that would be bound to the value of the DropDownList. I was unsuccessful in this attempt. But luckily, my jQuery is not dusty so I performed a little magic by doing the following:
<script type="text/Javascript">
$(document).ready(function () {
$('#Cuisines').change(function (e) {
$('#SelectedCuisine').val($('#Cuisines').val());
setHref($(this).val());
});
setHref($('#Cuisines').val());
});
function setHref(val) {
if (val) {
$("#addCuisine").attr('href', '/Restaurant/AddCuisine/' + $('#RestaurantId').val() + '?cuisineId=' + val);
}
}
</script>
<h3>Cuisines:</h3>
<br />
<%= Html.DropDownList("Cuisines")%>
<a id="addCuisine" href="">Add</a>
So, as you can see, I simply modify the href of the anchor as the user changes the selected Cuisine. Then, in my controller, I have a function setup to add a cuisine and to remove a cuisine from a restaurant:
Function AddCuisine(ByVal id As Guid, ByVal cuisineId As String) As ActionResult
Try
If ModelState.IsValid Then
'Dim selcuisInp As HtmlInputHidden = ViewData("SelectedCuisine")
Dim selectedCuisineId As Guid = New Guid(cuisineId)
Dim rc As New RestaurantCuisine
rc.RestaurantCuisineId = Guid.NewGuid
rc.RestaurantId = id
rc.CuisineId = selectedCuisineId
'rc.CuisineId = New Guid(selList.SelectedValue.ToString)
rc.CreatedDate = DateTime.Now()
'rc.CreatedBy =
db.AddToRestaurantCuisines(rc)
db.SaveChanges()
End If
Return RedirectToAction("Details", New With {.id = id})
Catch e As Exception
Dim innerE As String = e.InnerException.ToString
Return RedirectToAction("Details", New With {.id = id})
End Try
End Function
Function DeleteRestaurantCuisine(ByVal id As Guid) As ActionResult
Dim rc = (From rcs In db.RestaurantCuisines
Where rcs.RestaurantCuisineId = id
Select rcs).Single()
Dim rid As Guid = rc.RestaurantId
Try
db.RestaurantCuisines.DeleteObject(rc)
db.SaveChanges()
Return RedirectToAction("Details", New With {.id = rid})
Catch ex As Exception
Return RedirectToAction("Details", New With {.id = rid})
End Try
End Function
Notice the RedirectToAction. I had to pass the id of the object (Restaurant) that the Details view required and couldn't find the syntax anywhere. Finally, after a while of searching, found this site that the guy has a few examples of controllers and luckily he gives examples of both C# and VB. To add routeValues to the RedirectToAction, you declare a new list, and use an inline with and add your values with a period (.) preceding them:
Return RedirectToAction("Details", New With {.id = rid})
I hope this helps someone. It sure made the difference in my decision to use MVC. I am 100% sold even though I know I'm going to run into many roadblocks along the way.