Hi,

Inside my umbraco website, I want a section in which the content is pulled from a regular database (not from the Umbraco CMS). I want to the section to display a list of items. When I click on an item, I can edit it in a form and save it.

I followed the docs to highjack the routes here : http://our.umbraco.org/documentation/reference/Templating/Mvc/custom-controllers and it works (as in I can highjack the route, display the list of items, and on the details page, the post with the SurfaceController also works). I created 2 DocTypes and 2 templates. One for the index page and one for the details page. My arborescence looks like : 

• Homepage
  • Index
    • Details

My problem is that I don't know how to link the Index and Details page together. In my "Index" view where I list the items, how do I create a link to the "Details" view?

In my Index view, I have : 

@{
    var detailsNode = Model.Content.Children.Where(c => c.DocumentTypeAlias == "ItemDetails").FirstOrDefault();
}

@foreach (var item in Model.Items)
{
    <a href="@detailsNode.Url()">@item.Title</a>
}

This sort of works, but I don't get the ID of the item I want. How do I pass it? Url() doesn't take a parameter. I know I could add a query string manually but it feels to hackish to be the way to go.

What is the correct way of doing what I am trying to do? Is the 2 content pages approach right (creating a link based only on the fact that it is the children feels wrong)? If so, how do I pass the item from the Index page to the Details page, and how do I fetch it back once I am on the Details page? I understand that @Html.ActionLink doesn't work because of Umbraco's routing engine but how do I get the equivalent?

Sorry for the long post, I am new to Umbraco and unsure of what details are relevant to this problem. If I am being unclear, please let me know.

Thank you for your help!