How do you handle multiple submit buttons in ASP.N

Question

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.

Answer 1

//model
    public class input_element
        {
         public string Btn { get; set; }
        }   

//views--submit btn can be input type also...
    @using (Html.BeginForm())
    {
            <button type="submit" name="btn" value="verify">
             Verify data</button>
            <button type="submit" name="btn" value="save">
             Save data</button>    
            <button type="submit" name="btn" value="redirect">
                 Redirect</button>
    }

//controller

    public ActionResult About()
        {
            ViewBag.Message = "Your app description page.";
            return View();
        }

        [HttpPost]
        public ActionResult About(input_element model)
        {
                if (model.Btn == "verify")
                {
                // the Verify button was clicked
                }
                else if (model.Btn == "save")
                {
                // the Save button was clicked
                } 
                else if (model.Btn == "redirect")
                {
                // the Redirect button was clicked
                } 
                return View();
        }

Answer 2

My JQuery approach using an extension method:

public static MvcHtmlString SubmitButtonFor<TController>(this HtmlHelper helper, Expression<Action<TController>> action, string value) where TController : Controller
{
    RouteValueDictionary routingValues = Microsoft.Web.Mvc.Internal.ExpressionHelper.GetRouteValuesFromExpression(action);

    var onclick = string.Format("$('form').first().attr('action', '/{0}')", string.Join("/", routingValues.Values.ToArray().Where(x => x != null).Select(x => x.ToString()).ToArray()));
    var html = "<input type=\"submit\" value=\"" + value + "\" onclick=\"" + onclick + "\" />";

    return MvcHtmlString.Create(html);
}

You can use it like this:

@(Html.SubmitButtonFor<FooController>(c => c.Save(null), "Save"))

And it renders like this:

<input type="submit" value="Save" onclick="$('form').first().attr('action', '/Foo/Save')" >

Answer 3

For each submit button just add:

$('#btnSelector').click(function () {

    $('form').attr('action', "/Your/Action/);
    $('form').submit();

});

Answer 4

Based on mkozicki answer I come up with a bit different solution. I still use ActionNameSelectorAttribute But I needed to handle two buttons 'Save' and 'Sync'. They do almost the same so I didn't want to have two actions.

attribute:

public class MultipleButtonActionAttribute : ActionNameSelectorAttribute
{        
    private readonly List<string> AcceptedButtonNames;

    public MultipleButtonActionAttribute(params string[] acceptedButtonNames)
    {
        AcceptedButtonNames = acceptedButtonNames.ToList();
    }

    public override bool IsValidName(ControllerContext controllerContext, string actionName, MethodInfo methodInfo)
    {            
        foreach (var acceptedButtonName in AcceptedButtonNames)
        {
            var button = controllerContext.Controller.ValueProvider.GetValue(acceptedButtonName);
            if (button == null)
            {
                continue;
            }                
            controllerContext.Controller.ControllerContext.RouteData.Values.Add("ButtonName", acceptedButtonName);
            return true;
        }
        return false;
    }
}

view

<input type="submit" value="Save" name="Save" />
<input type="submit" value="Save and Sync" name="Sync" />

controller

 [MultipleButtonAction("Save", "Sync")]
 public ActionResult Sync(OrgSynchronizationEditModel model)
 {
     var btn = this.RouteData.Values["ButtonName"];

I also want to point out that if actions do different things I would probably follow mkozicki post.

Answer 5

I don't have enough rep to comment in the correct place, but I spent all day on this so want to share.

While trying to implement the "MultipleButtonAttribute" solution ValueProvider.GetValue(keyValue) would incorrectly come back null.

It turned out I was referencing System.Web.MVC version 3.0 when it should have been 4.0 (other assemblies are 4.0). I don't know why my project didn't upgrade correctly and I had no other obvious problems.

So if your ActionNameSelectorAttribute is not working... check that.

Answer 6

I've created an ActionButton method for the HtmlHelper. It will generate normal input button with a bit of javascript in the OnClick event that will submit the form to the specified Controller/Action.

You use the helper like that

@Html.ActionButton("MyControllerName", "MyActionName", "button text")

this will generate the following HTML

<input type="button" value="button text" onclick="this.form.action = '/MyWebsiteFolder/MyControllerName/MyActionName'; this.form.submit();">

Here is the extension method code:

VB.Net

<System.Runtime.CompilerServices.Extension()>
Function ActionButton(pHtml As HtmlHelper, pAction As String, pController As String, pRouteValues As Object, pBtnValue As String, pBtnName As String, pBtnID As String) As MvcHtmlString
    Dim urlHelperForActionLink As UrlHelper
    Dim btnTagBuilder As TagBuilder

    Dim actionLink As String
    Dim onClickEventJavascript As String

    urlHelperForActionLink = New UrlHelper(pHtml.ViewContext.RequestContext)
    If pController <> "" Then
        actionLink = urlHelperForActionLink.Action(pAction, pController, pRouteValues)
    Else
        actionLink = urlHelperForActionLink.Action(pAction, pRouteValues)
    End If
    onClickEventJavascript = "this.form.action = '" & actionLink & "'; this.form.submit();"

    btnTagBuilder = New TagBuilder("input")
    btnTagBuilder.MergeAttribute("type", "button")

    btnTagBuilder.MergeAttribute("onClick", onClickEventJavascript)

    If pBtnValue <> "" Then btnTagBuilder.MergeAttribute("value", pBtnValue)
    If pBtnName <> "" Then btnTagBuilder.MergeAttribute("name", pBtnName)
    If pBtnID <> "" Then btnTagBuilder.MergeAttribute("id", pBtnID)

    Return MvcHtmlString.Create(btnTagBuilder.ToString(TagRenderMode.Normal))
End Function

C# (the C# code is just decompiled from the VB DLL, so it can get some beautification... but time is so short :-))

public static MvcHtmlString ActionButton(this HtmlHelper pHtml, string pAction, string pController, object pRouteValues, string pBtnValue, string pBtnName, string pBtnID)
{
    UrlHelper urlHelperForActionLink = new UrlHelper(pHtml.ViewContext.RequestContext);
    bool flag = Operators.CompareString(pController, "", true) != 0;
    string actionLink;
    if (flag)
    {
        actionLink = urlHelperForActionLink.Action(pAction, pController, System.Runtime.CompilerServices.RuntimeHelpers.GetObjectValue(pRouteValues));
    }
    else
    {
        actionLink = urlHelperForActionLink.Action(pAction, System.Runtime.CompilerServices.RuntimeHelpers.GetObjectValue(pRouteValues));
    }
    string onClickEventJavascript = "this.form.action = '" + actionLink + "'; this.form.submit();";
    TagBuilder btnTagBuilder = new TagBuilder("input");
    btnTagBuilder.MergeAttribute("type", "button");
    btnTagBuilder.MergeAttribute("onClick", onClickEventJavascript);
    flag = (Operators.CompareString(pBtnValue, "", true) != 0);
    if (flag)
    {
        btnTagBuilder.MergeAttribute("value", pBtnValue);
    }
    flag = (Operators.CompareString(pBtnName, "", true) != 0);
    if (flag)
    {
        btnTagBuilder.MergeAttribute("name", pBtnName);
    }
    flag = (Operators.CompareString(pBtnID, "", true) != 0);
    if (flag)
    {
        btnTagBuilder.MergeAttribute("id", pBtnID);
    }
    return MvcHtmlString.Create(btnTagBuilder.ToString(TagRenderMode.Normal));
}

These methods have various parameters, but for the ease of use you can create some overload that take just the parameters you need.