This is my first time posting and I'm a total beginner to coding and MVC.
I'm trying to create a filtering system to filter the user's posts. My logic is to allow the user to search for a keyword, by username and by category name. The user can use a keyword and/or username and/or category name. The keyword is a simple TextBoxFor and the username and category are DropDownLists. When I'm running the code with only the keyword TextBoxFor and only one DropDownList everything is working fine, however when I use the other DropDownList I will get this error.
The ViewData item that has the key 'UserID' is of type 'System.String' but must be of type 'IEnumerable'.
I've made a bit of research and I've came to the conclusion that the UserID DropDownList is giving a null value. The only thing I could think of is maybe giving the UserID a default value, however I couldn't manage to do it. Is there a better way to do it instead of giving it a default value? If no, how can I manage to do it?
Thanks , bobdbuider
My ViewModel:
public class DTOSearchModel
{
#region Properties
public string Keyword { get; set; }
[Display(Name = "Username")]
public string UserID { get; set; }
[Display(Name = "Category Name")]
public int CategoryID { get; set; }
public List<Models.PostTable> PostResults { get; set; }
#endregion
public DTOSearchModel()
{
Keyword = "";
UserID = "Select a Username";
CategoryID = 0;
PostResults = new List<Models.PostTable>();
}
}
}
My Controller:
//POST Search
[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
public ActionResult Index(DTOSearchModel model)
{
if (ModelState.IsValid)
{
var postTables = db.PostTables.Include(p => p.AspNetUser).Include(p => p.CategoryTable).Include(p => p.StatusTable);
var posts = postTables.ToList();
//CategoryID
if (model.CategoryID !=0)
{
ViewBag.CategoryID = new SelectList(db.CategoryTables, "CategoryID", "CategoryName");
posts = posts.Where(k => k.CategoryID.Equals(model.CategoryID)).ToList();
}
//UserID
ViewBag.UserID = new SelectList(db.AspNetUsers, "Id", "Email" ,"Select");
posts = posts.Where(k => k.UserID.Equals(model.UserID)).ToList();
//Keyword
if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(model.Keyword))
{
posts = posts.Where(k => k.Title.ToLower().Contains(model.Keyword.ToLower()) || k.Body.ToLower().Contains(model.Keyword.ToLower())).ToList();
}
model.PostResults = posts;
}
return View(model);
}
}
}
My View:
<div class="col-md-3">
@Html.LabelFor(model => model.Keyword)
@Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.Keyword, htmlAttributes: new { @class = "form-control" })
</div>
<div class="col-md-4">
@Html.LabelFor(model => model.UserID)
@Html.DropDownList("UserID", null, htmlAttributes: new { @class = "form-control" })
</div>
<div class="col-md-4">
@Html.LabelFor(model => model.CategoryID)
@Html.DropDownList("CategoryID" , null, "Select a Category Name", htmlAttributes: new { @class = "form-control" })
</div>
