ASP.NET MVC 5 View Model Collection Binding

Sometimes it's necessary to use a collection of complex types within a single MVC view.

An example (kept as simple as possible to illustrate the concept):

public class MyCalendarModel 
{
	public string CalendarName { get; set; }
	public bool IsPublic { get; set; }
	public List CalendarEntries { get; set; }
}

public class CalendarEntryModel 
{
	public string Subject;
	public DateTime Date;
	public string Location;
	public bool Required;
}

So in order to allow the user to see a list of all their calendar entries as form elements and edit any field for each one we can simply loop over each one and use Html.[whatever]For(...) . A simple example:

@model MyCalendarModel

@using (Html.BeginForm()) 
{
	Name: @Html.TextBoxFor(x => x.CalendarName)<br/>

	Is Public?: @Html.CheckBoxFor(x => x.IsPublic)<br/><br/>

	@for (var i = 0; i < Model.CalendarEntries.Count; i++) 
	{
		<div class="calendar-entry">
			Subject: @Html.TextBoxFor(x => x.CalendarEntries[i].Subject)<br/>
			Date: @Html.TextBoxFor(x => x.CalendarEntries[i].Date)<br/>
			Location: @Html.TextBoxFor(x => x.CalendarEntries[i].Location)<br/>
			Required: @Html.CheckBoxFor(x => x.CalendarEntries[i].Required)<br/>
		</div>
	}
	
	<input type="submit" value="Save" />
}

Then when the form is posted back, the individual calendar entries will be automatically bound back into the model and you can save them as you normally would.

Easy!