Table of Contents

Ploch.Common.WebUI

Shared view model helpers and tag utility extensions for ASP.NET Core MVC / Razor Pages applications.

Overview

Ploch.Common.WebUI provides a small set of helpers that address recurring needs in ASP.NET Core MVC and Razor Pages projects: tracking the currently active page in a shared layout and building strongly-typed SelectListItem collections from domain model collections.

The AppPage record gives a common representation of a named route so that layouts and navigation partials can highlight the active menu item without relying on magic strings scattered across views. The SelectListHelper reduces the ceremony of converting a list of domain objects into the IList<SelectListItem> shape required by <select> tag helpers.

Installation

dotnet add package Ploch.Common.WebUI

Key Types

Type Kind Description
AppPage Record Represents a navigable page with Name, Path, and Title properties.
AppPageViewDataExtensions Static class Extension methods on ViewDataDictionary: SetCurrentPage, GetCurrentPage, GetPageTitle. Uses the key "CurrentPage".
SelectListHelper Static class CreateFor<TModel> — maps any collection to IList<SelectListItem> using delegate-provided text and value selectors.

Usage Examples

Marking the active page in a controller action

public IActionResult Index()
{
    ViewData.SetCurrentPage(new AppPage("Home", "/", "Home - My App"));
    return View();
}

Reading the active page in a shared layout

@using Ploch.Common.WebUI
@{
    var page = ViewData.GetCurrentPage();
    var title = ViewData.GetPageTitle() ?? "My App";
}
<title>@title</title>
<nav>
    <a class="@(page?.Path == "/" ? "active" : "")" href="/">Home</a>
    <a class="@(page?.Path == "/blog" ? "active" : "")" href="/blog">Blog</a>
</nav>

Building a select list from a domain collection

// In a controller action:
var categories = await _categoryRepository.GetAllAsync();
ViewBag.Categories = SelectListHelper.CreateFor(
    categories,
    textFunc: c => c.Name,
    valueFunc: c => c.Id,
    includeNull: true,
    nullText: "-- Select category --");

@* In the view: *@
<select asp-items="ViewBag.Categories" name="CategoryId"></select>

CreateFor accepts an optional includeNull flag (default false). When true, a leading empty item is prepended with the text supplied by nullText (default "--- Select ---").

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