Asp.net MVC Razor more than one form on a page

Question

Yo

I have a registration page on my site - at the top of the page is a login form for existing users. In the main area there is the registration form.

The login are is a partial view with @model ViewModels.LoginViewModel The registration are is also a partial with @model ViewModels.RegViewModel

The main page which houses these partials is a view with @model ViewModels.RegPageViewModel

This viewmodel looks like:

public class RegViewModel
{
    public RegisterVm RegisterVm { get; set; }
    public LoginVm LoginVm { get; set; }
}

When I submit the registration part of the page (it's action is register/capture - the receiving action expects a RegisterVm) to it's controller it complains about being passed the wrong viewmodel

What's the deal with subviews and their viewmodel? Is there a standard approach to dealing with this?

Should I have one submit URL for this page which figures out if it's a login request or a register request and then handles the post accordingly? That seems messy to me though...

http://monobin.com/__d33cf45a4 - RegisterVm.cs (LoginVm.cs is pretty much the same as this)

http://monobin.com/__m69132f76 - RegPageVm.cs

Register.cshtml:

@model xxxx.ViewModels.RegPageVm
@{
    View.Title = "Register";
    Layout = "~/Views/Shared/_BareBones.cshtml";
}
<link rel="stylesheet" href="@Url.Content("~/Public/Css/signup.css")" type="text/css" />
<div id="sign-up-container">
    <div id="sign-up-box">
        <div id="sign-up-box-left">
            <img src="@Url.Content("~/Public/Images/Signup_176x81.png")" />
        </div>
        <div id="sign-up-box-right">
           @Html.Partial("_Register")
        </div>
    </div>
</div>
<div class="clear">
</div>

_Register.cshtml:

@model xxxx.ViewModels.RegisterVm

@using (Html.BeginForm("Capture", "Register", FormMethod.Post))
{
    <table class="sign-up-box-inner">
        <tr>
            <td class="label-area">
                @Html.LabelFor(x => x.Email)
            </td>
            <td class="field-area">
                @Html.TextBoxFor(x => x.Email, new { @class = "login-input", title = "Enter Name" })
            </td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td class="label-area">
                @Html.LabelFor(x => x.Password)
            </td>
            <td class="field-area">
                @Html.PasswordFor(x => x.Password, new { @class = "login-input", title = "Enter Name" })
            </td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td class="label-area">
                @Html.LabelFor(x => x.UserName)
            </td>
            <td class="field-area">
                @Html.TextBoxFor(x => x.UserName, new { @class = "login-input", title = "Enter Name" })
            </td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td colspan="2">
                <input type="image" src="../../Public/Images/Submit_150x47.png" class="submit-button" />
            </td>
        </tr>
    </table>
    @Html.AntiForgeryToken()
}

And finally RegisterController.cs:

public class RegisterController : Controller
    {
        public ActionResult Index()
        {
           return View();
        }

        [HttpPost, ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
        public ActionResult Capture(RegisterVm registerVm)
        {
            if (!ModelState.IsValid)
            {
                return View("index", new RegPageVm()
                {
                    LoginVm = new LoginVm(),
                    RegisterVm = registerVm
                });
            }

            return RedirectToAction("index", "Event");
        }
    }

w://

Answer 1

You need to ensure that the form elements (like the textbox etc) should have the same id as the RegisterVM and LoginVM properties. Your theory is right but I think you might be making a mistake in the naming convention of MVC.

If you can share your view code + the VM classes, then we'll be able to help better.

EDIT:

Looking at your code I think you should be passing the view model to your partial view. Like for example the following line believe should be like this >

@Html.Partial("_Register", Model.RegisterVm)

Answer 2

According to your answer to nEEbz:

You are using:

Html.TextBoxFor(x=>x.LoginVM.Email) // i guess

this would turn into <input name="LoginVM.Email" ...>

Notice the LoginVM. part

Your login action probably looks like:

public ActionResult Login(LoginVM model) { }

so it expect field names like Email and Password, not LoginVM.Email and LoginVM.Password.

So you could could use Html.Textbox instead (so that the field name doesn't get autocreated).