asp.net mvc - Cascading drop-downs in MVC 3 Razor view

Question

I am interested in how to implement cascading dropdown lists for addresses in a Razor view. My Site entity has a SuburbId property. Suburb has a CityId, and City has ProvinceId. I would like to display dropdowns for all of Suburb, City, and Province on the Site view, where e.g. the suburb dropdown will initially display "First select a City", and the City dropdown, "First select a province". On selecting a province, cities in the province are populated etc.

How can I achieve this? Where do I start?

Answer 1

Let's illustrate with an example. As always start with a model:

public class MyViewModel
{
    public string SelectedProvinceId { get; set; }
    public string SelectedCityId { get; set; }
    public string SelectedSuburbId { get; set; }
    public IEnumerable<Province> Provinces { get; set; }
}

public class Province
{
    public string Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

Next a controller:

public class HomeController : Controller
{
    public ActionResult Index()
    {
        var model = new MyViewModel
        {
            // TODO: Fetch those from your repository
            Provinces = Enumerable.Range(1, 10).Select(x => new Province
            {
                Id = (x + 1).ToString(),
                Name = "Province " + x
            })
        };
        return View(model);
    }

    public ActionResult Suburbs(int cityId)
    {
        // TODO: Fetch the suburbs from your repository based on the cityId
        var suburbs = Enumerable.Range(1, 5).Select(x => new
        {
            Id = x,
            Name = "suburb " + x
        });
        return Json(suburbs, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);
    }

    public ActionResult Cities(int provinceId)
    {
        // TODO: Fetch the cities from your repository based on the provinceId
        var cities = Enumerable.Range(1, 5).Select(x => new
        {
            Id = x,
            Name = "city " + x
        });
        return Json(cities, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);
    }
}

And finally a view:

@model SomeNs.Models.MyViewModel

@{
    ViewBag.Title = "Home Page";
}

<script type="text/javascript" src="/scripts/jquery-1.4.4.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
    $(function () {
        $('#SelectedProvinceId').change(function () {
            var selectedProvinceId = $(this).val();
            $.getJSON('@Url.Action("Cities")', { provinceId: selectedProvinceId }, function (cities) {
                var citiesSelect = $('#SelectedCityId');
                citiesSelect.empty();
                $.each(cities, function (index, city) {
                    citiesSelect.append(
                        $('<option/>')
                            .attr('value', city.Id)
                            .text(city.Name)
                    );
                });
            });
        });

        $('#SelectedCityId').change(function () {
            var selectedCityId = $(this).val();
            $.getJSON('@Url.Action("Suburbs")', { cityId: selectedCityId }, function (suburbs) {
                var suburbsSelect = $('#SelectedSuburbId');
                suburbsSelect.empty();
                $.each(suburbs, function (index, suburb) {
                    suburbsSelect.append(
                        $('<option/>')
                            .attr('value', suburb.Id)
                            .text(suburb.Name)
                    );
                });
            });
        });
    });
</script>

<div>
    Province: 
    @Html.DropDownListFor(x => x.SelectedProvinceId, new SelectList(Model.Provinces, "Id", "Name"))
</div>
<div>
    City: 
    @Html.DropDownListFor(x => x.SelectedCityId, Enumerable.Empty<SelectListItem>())
</div>
<div>
    Suburb: 
    @Html.DropDownListFor(x => x.SelectedSuburbId, Enumerable.Empty<SelectListItem>())
</div>

As an improvement the javascript code could be shortened by writing a jquery plugin to avoid duplicating some parts.

---

UPDATE:

And talking about a plugin you could have something among the lines:

(function ($) {
    $.fn.cascade = function (options) {
        var defaults = { };
        var opts = $.extend(defaults, options);

        return this.each(function () {
            $(this).change(function () {
                var selectedValue = $(this).val();
                var params = { };
                params[opts.paramName] = selectedValue;
                $.getJSON(opts.url, params, function (items) {
                    opts.childSelect.empty();
                    $.each(items, function (index, item) {
                        opts.childSelect.append(
                            $('<option/>')
                                .attr('value', item.Id)
                                .text(item.Name)
                        );
                    });
                });
            });
        });
    };
})(jQuery);

And then simply wire it up:

$(function () {
    $('#SelectedProvinceId').cascade({
        url: '@Url.Action("Cities")',
        paramName: 'provinceId',
        childSelect: $('#SelectedCityId')
    });

    $('#SelectedCityId').cascade({
        url: '@Url.Action("Suburbs")',
        paramName: 'cityId',
        childSelect: $('#SelectedSuburbId')
    });
});