How do you handle multiple submit buttons in ASP.NET MVC Framework?
Is there some easy way to handle multiple submit buttons from the same form? Example:
<% Html.BeginForm("MyAction", "MyController", FormMethod.Post); %>
<input type="submit" value="Send" />
<input type="submit" value="Cancel" />
<% Html.EndForm(); %>
Any idea how to do this in ASP.NET Framework Beta? All examples I've googled for have single buttons in them.
Here is a mostly clean attribute-based solution to the multiple submit button issue based heavily on the post and comments from Maartin Balliauw.
[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Method, AllowMultiple = false, Inherited = true)]
public class MultipleButtonAttribute : ActionNameSelectorAttribute
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Argument { get; set; }
public override bool IsValidName(ControllerContext controllerContext, string actionName, MethodInfo methodInfo)
{
var isValidName = false;
var keyValue = string.Format("{0}:{1}", Name, Argument);
var value = controllerContext.Controller.ValueProvider.GetValue(keyValue);
if (value != null)
{
controllerContext.Controller.ControllerContext.RouteData.Values[Name] = Argument;
isValidName = true;
}
return isValidName;
}
}
razor:
<form action="" method="post">
<input type="submit" value="Save" name="action:Save" />
<input type="submit" value="Cancel" name="action:Cancel" />
</form>
and controller:
[HttpPost]
[MultipleButton(Name = "action", Argument = "Save")]
public ActionResult Save(MessageModel mm) { ... }
[HttpPost]
[MultipleButton(Name = "action", Argument = "Cancel")]
public ActionResult Cancel(MessageModel mm) { ... }
Update: Razor pages looks to provide the same functionality out of the box. For new development, it may be preferable.
Give your submit buttons a name, and then inspect the submitted value in your controller method:
<% Html.BeginForm("MyAction", "MyController", FormMethod.Post); %>
<input type="submit" name="submitButton" value="Send" />
<input type="submit" name="submitButton" value="Cancel" />
<% Html.EndForm(); %>
posting to
public class MyController : Controller {
public ActionResult MyAction(string submitButton) {
switch(submitButton) {
case "Send":
// delegate sending to another controller action
return(Send());
case "Cancel":
// call another action to perform the cancellation
return(Cancel());
default:
// If they've submitted the form without a submitButton,
// just return the view again.
return(View());
}
}
private ActionResult Cancel() {
// process the cancellation request here.
return(View("Cancelled"));
}
private ActionResult Send() {
// perform the actual send operation here.
return(View("SendConfirmed"));
}
}
EDIT:
To extend this approach to work with localized sites, isolate your messages somewhere else (eg compiling a resource file to a strongly-typed resource class)
Then modify the code so it works like:
<% Html.BeginForm("MyAction", "MyController", FormMethod.Post); %>
<input type="submit" name="submitButton" value="<%= Html.Encode(Resources.Messages.Send)%>" />
<input type="submit" name="submitButton" value="<%=Html.Encode(Resources.Messages.Cancel)%>" />
<% Html.EndForm(); %>
and your controller should look like this:
// Note that the localized resources aren't constants, so
// we can't use a switch statement.
if (submitButton == Resources.Messages.Send) {
// delegate sending to another controller action
return(Send());
} else if (submitButton == Resources.Messages.Cancel) {
// call another action to perform the cancellation
return(Cancel());
}
You can check the name in the action as has been mentioned, but you might consider whether or not this is good design. It is a good idea to consider the responsibility of the action and not couple this design too much to UI aspects like button names. So consider using 2 forms and 2 actions:
<% Html.BeginForm("Send", "MyController", FormMethod.Post); %>
<input type="submit" name="button" value="Send" />
<% Html.EndForm(); %>
<% Html.BeginForm("Cancel", "MyController", FormMethod.Post); %>
<input type="submit" name="button" value="Cancel" />
<% Html.EndForm(); %>
Also, in the case of "Cancel", you are usually just not processing the form and are going to a new URL. In this case you do not need to submit the form at all and just need a link:
<%=Html.ActionLink("Cancel", "List", "MyController") %>