MVC3 Razor Editor Template and additional parameters - asp.net-mvc-3

Question

I'm new to mvc3 and razor, and C# for that mater, and a small company just gave me a contract to do this huge project base on a failed one ... right now I need to create a table of books based on choice saved by the user ... books currently have about 40 different info in the model, and I'm wondering how to set it correctly in an template Editor or any other way ...
right now it looks like that in the view :
<table>
<tr class="header">
#if (!((List<string>)Session["searchPreferences"]).Contains("Authors"))
{
<td>Author</td>
}
#if (!((List<string>)Session["searchPreferences"]).Contains("bookName"))
{
<td>bookName</td>
}
#if (!((List<string>)Session["searchPreferences"]).Contains("editorName"))
{
<td>editorName</td>
}
</tr>
#foreach (BookModel book in Model.bookList)
{
<tr class="element">
#if (!((List<string>)Session["searchPreferences"]).Contains("Author"))
{
<td>#book.Author</td>
}
#if (!((List<string>)Session["searchPreferences"]).Contains("editorName"))
{
<td>#book.editorName</td>
}
</tr>
+ 1 <tr> </tr> ... for each 40 attributes in books
</table>
how can I go around making an Editor template and include the search preferences ( which are stored in session or on a LogUser model ...
other questions :
I've grasped the concept of using #Html.EditorFor(model => model.Books) and it'll loop threw my list of books, but how can I make sure it'll show only what the user wants ?, like can I pass some kind of parameters to the template and use the list passed on to validate each columns ?
and is there a simpler way to write down my template .. kinda like "get each property in my book model and create a row with is if the user have selected it" because the client come with a new way to classified his books and i'll have to recode everything each time he change of idea ...which I've been by my senior happens very very often. ( the pay is very good for the little experience I have, so i'll try to tackle this even if the project was started wrong and the client refuse to let us re-start from scratch )
thanks alot in advance for any info, help etc ... even if its a link toward a good demo or blog entry that would help.

Answer 1

I'm not 100% sure what you are trying to do, but if I understand you correctly you have a list of user preferences of what to show in a table. My advice to you would be to build a View Model that already has formatted the data the way you want it to be.
Meaning, by the time you pass your model to the view, you only have the column and data the user has specified in his / her search preferences.
You could have a Book Object, which holds a list of columns, Each 'Column' is its own object, with a Label and a Value.
public BookViewModel()
{
List Data { get; set; }
}
public Column()
{
string Label { get; set; }
string Value { get; set; }
}
When loading the model you would only create columns for the data the user wanted.
There may be better ways for you to format it, I just thought of this at a moments notice. But I think you should look at handling the filtering and the formatting of the data server side, not in Razor on the page.
The Editor Template is meant for customizing how an object is represented on an html page, especially if the object will be used in a lot of places on a page so you don't need to repeat yourself. Its not really made for filtering data.
Let me know if this doesn't make sense or I misunderstood you.