Different Types of HTML Helpers in ASP.NET MVC

Last Updated : 24 Aug, 2022

ASP.NET provides a wide range of built-in HTML helpers that can be used as per the user’s choice as there are multiple overrides available for them. There are three types of built-in HTML helpers offered by ASP.NET.

1. Standard HTML Helper

The HTML helpers that are mainly used to render HTML elements like text boxes, checkboxes, Radio Buttons, and Dropdown lists, etc. are called Standard HTML helpers.

List of Standard HTML Helpers

@Html.ActionLink() - Used to create link on html page
@Html.TextBox() - Used to create text box
@Html.CheckBox() - Used to create check box
@Html.RadioButton() - Used to create Radio Button
@Html.BeginFrom() - Used to start a form
@Html.EndFrom() - Used to end a form
@Html.DropDownList() - Used to create drop down list
@Html.Hidden() - Used to create hidden fields
@Html.label() - Used for creating HTML label is on the browser
@Html.TextArea() - The TextArea Method renders textarea element on browser
@Html.Password() - This method is responsible for creating password input field on browser
@Html.ListBox() - The ListBox helper method creates html ListBox with scrollbar on browser

HTML

@{
    Layout = null;
}
 
<!DOCTYPE html>
 
<html>
<head>
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width" />
    <title>Built-in HTML Helper</title>
</head>
<body>
    <div>
        <h3>Label example</h3>
        @Html.Label("firstName", "First Name")
 
        <h3>Text Box Example</h3>
        @Html.TextBox("txtFirstName", "", new { @class = "form-control", placeholder = "First Name" })
 
        <h3>Text Area Example</h3>
        @Html.TextArea("address", new { @class = "form-control", rows = "5" })
 
        <h3>password Example</h3>
        @Html.Password("password", " ", new { @class = "form-control" })
 
        <h3>Radio Button Example</h3>
        @Html.RadioButton("MaritalStatus", "Married", new { id = "IsMarried" }) Married
 
        <h3>Check Box Example</h3>
        @Html.CheckBox("htmlSkill") HTML 5
 
        <h3>List Box Example</h3>
        @Html.ListBox("Skills", new List<SelectListItem> {
            new SelectListItem { Text="ASP.NET",Value="1"},
            new SelectListItem { Text="MVC",Value="2"},
            new SelectListItem { Text="SQL Server",Value="3"},
            new SelectListItem { Text="Angular",Value="4"},
            new SelectListItem { Text="Web API",Value="5"}
        }, new { @class = "form-control" })
 
        <h3>drop down List Example</h3>
        @Html.DropDownList("Gender", new List<SelectListItem> {
                    new SelectListItem {Text="Select Gender",Value="-1" },
                    new SelectListItem {Text="Male",Value="1" },
                    new SelectListItem {Text="Female", Value="2" }
                    }, new { @class = "custom-select" })
 
    </div>
</body>
</html>

Standard HTML Helper

2. Strongly-Typed HTML Helper

The Strongly-Typed HTML helper takes a lambda as a parameter that tells the helper, which element of the model to be utilized in the typed view. The Strongly typed views are used for rendering specific sorts of model objects, rather than using the overall View-Data structure.

List of strongly-Typed HTML Helper

@Html.HiddenFor()
@Html.LabelFor()
@Html.TextBoxFor()
@Html.RadioButtonFor()
@Html.DropDownListFor()
@Html.CheckBoxFor()
@Html.TextAreaFor()
@Html.PasswordFor()
@Html.ListBoxFor()

The functionality of all of these are the same as above but they are used with modal classes. Now, as we know we need a model class to use strongly typed HTML. So firstly we will add a model class as follows

C#

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
 
namespace HTML_Helper_Demo.Models
{
    public class Employee
    {
        public int EmpId { get; set; }
        public string Name { get; set; }
        public string Gender { get; set; }
        public city city { get; set; }
        public skills skills { get; set; }
        public string Address { get; set; }
        public string Password { get; set; }
        public bool AgreeTerm { get; set; }
    }
}
public enum city
{
    Delhi,
    Mumbai,
    Kolkata,
    Chennai,
    Bangalore
}
public enum skills
{
    HTML5,
    CSS3,
    Bootstrap,
    JavaScript,
    JQuery,
    Angular,
    MVC,
    WebAPI
}

Now write the following code in the controller. And then add a view with the default properties.

C#

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Mvc;
using HTML_Helper_Demo.Models;
 
namespace HTML_Helper_Demo.Controllers
{
    public class HomeController : Controller
    {
        public ActionResult Index()
        {
            return View();
        }
        [HttpPost]
        public ActionResult Index(Employee emp)
        {
            return View();
        }
    }
}

Now write the HTML as follows:

HTML

@using HTML_Helper_Demo.Models
@model Employee
@{
    ViewBag.Title = "Index";
}
 
 
<div>
    <h3>Label  Example</h3>
    @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Name, new { @class = "label-control" })
 
    <h3>Text box Example</h3>
    @Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.Name, new { @class = "form-control" })
 
    <h3>Text Box Example 2</h3>
    @Html.TextAreaFor(model => model.Address, new { @class = "form-control", rows = "5" })
 
    <h3>Password for example</h3>
    @Html.PasswordFor(model => model.Password, new { @class = "form-control" })
 
    <h3>Radio Button Example</h3>
    @Html.RadioButtonFor(model => model.Gender, true, new { id = "male-true" })
    @Html.Label("male-true", "Male")
    @Html.RadioButtonFor(model => model.Gender, false, new { id = "female-true" })
    @Html.Label("female-true", "Female")
 
    <h3>Check Box Example</h3>
    @Html.CheckBoxFor(model => model.AgreeTerm)
 
    <h3>List Box Example</h3>
    @Html.ListBoxFor(model => model.skills, new SelectList(Enum.GetValues(typeof(skills))), 
                                            new { @class = "form-control" })
 
 
    <h3>Drop Down List Example</h3>
    @Html.DropDownListFor(model => model.city, new SelectList(Enum.GetValues(typeof(city))),
                                             "Select City", new { @class = "form-control" })
 
</div>

The output will be as follows:

Strongly-Typed HTML Helper

3. Templated HTML Helper

The templated HTML Helper is used for data display and input. It generates HTML automatically as per model property and it can generate HTML for a complete model with a single tag. These are divided into two categories

Display Template
Editor Template

List of Templated HTML Helpers

Display

@Html.Display()
@Html.DisplayFor()
@Html.DisplayName()
@Html.DisplayNameFor()
@Html.DisplayText()
@Html.DisplayTextFor()
@Html.DisplayModelFor()

Edit / Input

@Html.Editor()
@Html.EditorFor()
@Html.EditorForModel()

Now, here we can use the previously created model class and then we should write this code in the controller

C#

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Mvc;
using HTML_Helper_Demo.Models;
 
namespace HTML_Helper_Demo.Controllers
{
    public class HomeController : Controller
    {
        public ActionResult Details()
        {
            //Here we are hardcoded the Employee Details
            //In Realtime you will get the data from any data source
            Employee employee = new Employee()
            {
                EmpId = 1,
                Name = "Rishabh Tyagi",
                Gender = "Male",
                city = city.Delhi,
                skills = skills.WebAPI,
                Address = "lajpat Nagar",
                AgreeTerm = true
            };
            ViewData["EmployeeData"] = employee;
            return View();
        }
    }
}

Now add the view with all the default properties and write the following code

HTML

@{
    ViewBag.Title = "Details";
}
<fieldset>
    <legend>Employee Details</legend>
    @Html.Display("EmployeeData")
</fieldset>

The output will be as follows

Templated HTML Helper

Suggest improvement

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Profile Application using Python Flask and MySQL

Share your thoughts in the comments

Different Types of HTML Helpers in ASP.NET MVC

1. Standard HTML Helper

HTML

2. Strongly-Typed HTML Helper

C#

C#

HTML

3. Templated HTML Helper

C#

HTML

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