Converting objects in my MVC3 View

A user can upload a new document and add information, every document has a set of default properties. The admin has the ability to add a small amount of extra properties. He can add a string, bool, datetime value.

When generating my View I get a Dictionary<String,Object> with the extra 开发者_运维知识库properties. In my view I want to generate the right control for the object. So when it's a datetime object I want to load the jquery calendar, boolean a checkbox etc.

@switch (Model.ExtraFields[i].PropertyType)
    {
        case (short)Enums.PropertyType.Boolean:
        @Html.TextBoxFor(model => Convert.ToBoolean(Model.Values[i].ExtraFieldValue))
   break;
        case (short)Enums.PropertyType.DateTime:
        @Html.TextBoxFor(model => Convert.ToDateTime(Model.Values[i].ExtraFieldValue))
   break;
        default:
        @Html.TextBoxFor(model => Model.Values[i].ExtraFieldValue)
        break;
    }

It always gives an error on the Convert.To...

Templates can be used only with field access, property access, single-dimension array index, or single-parameter custom indexer expressions.

Any idea's?

---

The EditorFor, TextBoxFor and so on all require an expression which gives them access to meta data on the property that you're using. Convert.ToDateTime removes that access (because it returns a value instead) so the methods don't know what property name to use or any additional information like a [Display] attribute. I would suggest you do something like:

@switch (Model.ExtraFields[i].PropertyType) {
    case (short)Enums.PropertyType.Boolean:
        @Html.EditorFor(model => Model.Values[i].ExtraFieldValue, "BooleanEditor")
        break;
    case (short)Enums.PropertyType.DateTime:
        @Html.EditorFor(model => Model.Values[i].ExtraFieldValue, "DateTimeEditor")
        break;
    default:
        @Html.TextBoxFor(model => Model.Values[i].ExtraFieldValue)
        break;
}

Then you create EditorTemplates (as a subdirectory of your controller with specific templates named BooleanEditor.cshtml and so forth like so:

@model object
@Html.CheckBox("", Convert.ToBoolean(Model))

by leaving the first parameter blank you're going to automatically use the property name supplied via the expression from the call to EditorFor.