Adding validation property attributes in views with Html.EditorFor() methods not inside a Html.BegingForm() method - asp.net-mvc-3

Question

I have noticed that validation attributes are only added to the elements that were created via Html.EditorFor() helper method and which are inside a Html.BegingForm() method, that respectively creates the "Form" tag and attributes.
Is there any way, besides manually creating the elements and attributes of course to add the required validation attributes to elements created with helper methods and which are not inside the Html.BegingForm() method ?
I need to validate at the client side and don't want to manually either create said attributes or script this behavior explicitly and instead take advantage of the MVC feature that adds said attributes automatically as per metadata on the model for use with the jquery-validate plugin at the client-side.

Answer 1

The unobtrusive validation attributes emitted only if:
the UnobtrusiveJavaScriptEnabled flag is set to true
the ViewContext.FormContext is not null (e.g the Html helper is executed inside a Html.BeginForm block)
So you can manually create a FormContext and assign it to ViewContext.FormContext before using your Html helpers:
#{
ViewContext.FormContext = new FormContext();
}
#Html.TextBoxFor(x => x.SomeProperty)
However you should note that with this approach you lose the from nesting feature of Html.BeginForm so if you want to create a new logical form you need to again create new FormContext() and manage the old context yourself.