There's no issue per se, I'd like to just have my custom models in the new partials I'm going to develop.

OK, so what is stopping you? Nothing as far as I can see.

I think where the problem will rely is when trying to use the loop that renders the page. Half the partials will be cusom models and half of them as I showed you before.

Still no problem here as far as I can see, old ones stay as they are, news ones can be implemented with strongly type models if you choose.

I'll have to render each partial with its model then, using @Html.RenderPartial and passing the model. Is there a more compact way I can do that?

Adding tons of 'else if' in the loop is not something I'd like to do.

I'm still not sure I am understanding but I'll have a stab based on my interpretation. You don't want to add if/else statements for each of the legacy doctypes you want to render from your nested content property as well as adding them for your new views? You don't need to do it for all of them, just handle the new ones you are adding as you will need to make sure you pass your new models into the views. If I was doing this I would use a switch statement and simply provide a default case to handle all the legacy doctypes. Something roughly like this:

foreach (var item in Model.GetPropertyValue<IEnumerable<IPublishedContent>>("collection"))
{   
        var partialViewName = "_" + item.DocumentTypeAlias;

        switch (item.DocumentTypeAlias)
        {
            case "newDocType1":
                {
                    @Html.Partial(partialViewName, (NewModelOne)item, null)
                    break;
                }
            case "newDocType2":
                {
                    @Html.Partial(partialViewName, (NewModelTwo)item, null)
                    break;
                }
            case "newDocType3":
                {
                    @Html.Partial(partialViewName, (NewModelThree)item, null)
                    break;
                }
            default:
                @Html.Partial(partialViewName, (NewModelThree)item, null)
                break;
        }
}

I've not tested this code but it should give you an idea.

There's always the chance I'm overthinking it.

Very possibly, but there is also the possibility that it has taken you longer trying to find a way to avoid writing this code than it would have to write it :)

Cheers, Simon

When you say "modules" I'm assuming you mean document types (available in your nested content datatype) and their associated views?

You're right I probably worded it wrong. It's the project manager's fault! He's calling them that.

Yes, basically each 'module' is one document type and has a partial with the same name. So the loop searches for a partial with the same name and an underscore. Do you see where the problem lies now?

By the way thanks for your interest in this.

Harry

Do you see where the problem lies now?

Haha, no! As I explained, "you only need to add case statements for the ones you want to use custom models with". From your responses so far I got the impression that this was a limited number of the overall collection?

No, it's actually all of them. I want to move the project to a more 'MVC' approach and move away from just repeating @Model.GetPropertyValue<string>("alias")

in every single document type until the sun sets. So, I'd like to use Custom Models in every single one of them. (About 20 new ones). At the same time the previous/legacy remaining 30 of them will be left alone. I don't have time to touch them.

So adding case statements won't work.

No, I was aiming for all of them. Slowly moving the legacy project to strongly typed models. To do that, I need to come up with a loop that I guess is like:

@foreach (var partial in nestedContentCollection) {
    if (partialdoesn'thavecustommodel) 
    {
        @Html.Partial("bla")
    }
    else
    {
        @Html.RenderPartial(thePartial, itsmodel, etc)
    }

}

And where is itsmodel coming from? How will you determine the type of model pass into each view?

Simon

Hi Simon,

I was thinking of making something similar to what I've done with the loop that searches for the document Type Alias. So name the view models the same as the view.

I also had another idea which is have one view model for everything as every module seems to be a textfield, an image and then something like a textarea and a link.

If you're interested I'll update you on Friday when I'll actually get to have time to look into it.

Regards Harry.

Hi Frans,

Thanks for the advice. I'll make sure to check if we have the same problem once I start.

Harry

You can disable it if you want. Its in the update guide.

Hi Harry,

Did you manage to merge the projects?

Frans

Not exactly.

Client after all wanted to continue on the old project and I had to keep going without custom models. I did test a few things though and it seems it would be simpler than I thought if I got to actually take the time to do it.

Why?

Just curious, was looking in my list of open topics ;)