I wanted to share some extensions I use for dealing with the Asp.Net MVC select lists (DropDownList/ListBox) helpers.  Why the mvc helper apis are not more friendly in this area, I do not know…

Now some examples of how to use these extensions:

A single dropdown:

@Html.DropDownListFor(x => x.PropertyId, Model.AllProperties.ToSelectListItems(x => x.Name, x => x.Id.ToString(), x => x.Id == Model.PropertyId))

A multiselect dropdown:

@Html.ListBoxFor(x => x.PropertyIds, Model.AllProperties.ToMultiSelectListItems(x => x.Name, x => x.Id.ToString(), x => Model.PropertyIds.Contains(x.Id)))