MVC ASP.NET C# TUTORIAL: MVC C# How to implement a dropdown list

To implement a dropdown list. Its most preferable to do so in the controller action method. Firstly you will need to create a List of SelectListItem. SelectListItem belongs to the System.Web.Mvc Here i have a brand select list. Which will allow me to choose which brand of phone i want to purchase.

var brandsList = new List<SelectListItem>(){
    new SelectListItem() { Text = "None", Value = "0" },
    new SelectListItem() { Text = "Samsung", Value = "1" },
    new SelectListItem() { Text = "Apple", Value = "2" },
    new SelectListItem() { Text = "Microsoft", Value = "3" }
};

This is a phone class which i will be rendering a MVC razor view for.

public class Phone
{
    public int Brand { get; set; }

    public decimal Cost { get; set; }

    public List<selectlistitem> BrandsList { get; set; }
}

Here, i am creating an "Create" action in my PhoneController. In this i am assigning my brand list of items to the Phone models BrandList.

public ActionResult Create() {
    var phone = new Phone();

    var brandsList = new List<SelectListItem>(){
                new SelectListItem() { Text = "None", Value = "0" },
                new SelectListItem() { Text = "Samsung", Value = "1" },
                new SelectListItem() { Text = "Apple", Value = "2" },
                new SelectListItem() { Text = "Microsoft", Value = "3" }
            };

    phone.BrandsList = brandsList;

    return View(phone);
}

Finally in my razor view i have a drowdownlistfor template with the first parameter as Brand property and the second parameter is the BrandList. @Html.DropDownListFor(model => model.Brand, Model.BrandsList) The view rendered shows this...

The dropdown options shown are...

This is what gets rendered in HTML.