Populate dropdownlist from another dropdownlist with objects in MVC 2

I am trying to develop a simple MVC 2 timesheet application for my small business.

I have a sort of mock model for now until I have a database in place, just to make things simpler while I develop the functionality. It consists of the following:

public class CustomersRepository
{
    public CustomersRepository()
    {
        Customers = new List<Customer>();
    }

    public List<Customer> Customers { get; set; }
}    

public class Task
{
    public Task()
    {
        Customer = new Customer();
        TimeSegments = new List<TimeSegment>();
    }
    public override string ToString()
    {
        return Name;
    }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public Customer Customer { get; set; }
    public List<TimeSegment> TimeSegments { get; set; }

}

public class TimeSegment
{
    public string Id { get; set; }
    public string Date { get; set; }
    public int Hours { get; set; }

}

public class Customer
{
    //To show the name in the combobox instead of the object name.
    public override string ToString()
    {
        return Name;
    }
    public Customer()
    {
        Tasks = new List<Task>();
    }

    public List<Task> Tasks { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }

}

I initialize the repository in the controller, and pass the "model" to the view:

    CustomersRepository model = new CustomersRepository();

    public ActionResult Index()
    {
        InitializeRepository();
        return View(model);
    }

Now, in the view I populate a dropdownlist with the customers:

    <div>
        <%:Html.DropDownListFor(m => m.Customers, new SelectList(Model.Customers), new {@id="customerDropDownList"}) %>
    </div>

But then I need to populate a second dropdownlist (taskDropDownList for the tasks associated with a particular customer) based on the selection the user chooses in the customer dropdownlist.

But how do I do this exactly? I have seen examples with jQuery, but I'm not sure how to apply them to this situation. Also, the examples seem to just populate the lists with string values. I need to be able to access the objects with all their properties. Because the next thing I need to do is to be able to populate the TimeSegments list of the selected task with values from input fields (i.e. the hours worked for particular dates). And for that to be saved to the "model" (eventually to the database) in the controller, how do I get it there, unless the objects are all part of the same model bound to the View?

I'm on rather thin ice with this since I still find the connection between the View and the Controller hard to handle, compared with e.g. Wind开发者_运维技巧ows development, where these things are rather easy to do. So I would really appreciate a good step by step example if anyone would be so kind as to provide that!

---

I found the answer here: http://www.pieterg.com/post/2010/04/12/Cascading-DropDownList-with-ASPNET-MVC-and-JQuery.aspx

It needed some tweaks, and I got help here from CGK. See this post:

Cascading dropdownlist with mvc and jQuery not working