Cascading DropDownLists
The cascading functionality is represented by a series of two or more DropDownLists in which each DropDownList is filtered according to the selected options in the previous DropDownList.
Basic Concepts and Requirements
The child DropDownList cascades from the parent one if the CascadeFrom property is defined. The CascadeFrom property has to point to the Name of the parent DropDownList widget.
The following actions occur during initialization of the child DropDownList. The child UI for ASP.NET MVC DropDownList:
- checks if the
CascadeFromproperty is set. If not, cascading is disabled. - tries to find the parent DropDownList object. If the result is
null, then the functionality is omitted. - listens to any changes of the parent value.
-
is disabled if the parent does not have a value. If the parent has a value, the child is enabled and filters its data accordingly. The following example demonstrates the parameters of the request.
filter[logic]: and filter[filters][0][field]: parentID filter[filters][0][operator]: eq filter[filters][0][value]:
Additional data can be sent with the request by using the Data method and providing the name of a JavaScript function which will return a JavaScript object with the additional data.
- The cascading functionality works only when you define the
CascadeFromproperty and initialize the parent DropDownList.- The filter operator is always
"eq". To filter the data, the child DropDownList uses theDataValueFieldoption of the parent DropDownList.
The following example demonstrates how to configure the cascading functionality for the UI for ASP.NET MVC DropDownList:
<h4>Categories:</h4>
@(Html.Kendo().DropDownList()
.Name("categories")
.HtmlAttributes(new { style = "width:100%" })
.OptionLabel("Select category...")
.DataTextField("CategoryName")
.DataValueField("CategoryId")
.DataSource(source =>
{
source.Read(read =>
{
read.Action("Cascading_GetCategories", "DropDownList");
});
})
)
<h4 style="margin-top: 2em;">Products:</h4>
@(Html.Kendo().DropDownList()
.Name("products")
.HtmlAttributes(new { style = "width:100%" })
.OptionLabel("Select product...")
.DataTextField("ProductName")
.DataValueField("ProductID")
.DataSource(source =>
{
source.Read(read =>
{
read.Action("Cascading_GetProducts", "DropDownList")
.Data("filterProducts");
})
.ServerFiltering(true);
})
.Enable(false)
.AutoBind(false)
.CascadeFrom("categories")
)
<script>
function filterProducts() {
return {
categories: $("#categories").val()
};
}
</script>
public JsonResult Cascading_GetCategories()
{
using (var northwind = GetContext())
{
return Json(northwind.Categories
.Select(c => new { CategoryId = c.CategoryID, CategoryName = c.CategoryName }).ToList());
}
}
public JsonResult Cascading_GetProducts(int? categories)
{
using (var northwind = GetContext())
{
var products = northwind.Products.AsQueryable();
if (categories != null)
{
products = products.Where(p => p.CategoryID == categories);
}
return Json(products.Select(p => new { ProductID = p.ProductID, ProductName = p.ProductName }).ToList());
}
}