Develop Reference

Collecting values from views BEFORE POST

I have a view that allows data entry for submission to the database. In the process of entering data in this view, the requirement is that I link to another view, select a particular row of data, then return with said data to the original view without losing any of the previous edits in the original view.
I am using #Html.ActionLink() to get to the other view and the same sort of link to return to view 1. I've attempted session, TempData, etc. and all entries are lost, I believe, due to not actually doing a form post.
These two views are managed by two separate controllers.

How to return an object from controller to View which may not be model

I am very new to MVC and I am not too conversant with the best practices here. I am facing a design issue which may be common or uncommon to newbies like me. My problem is the following:
I have a page with two parts in it.
Grid Control (with Employee basic info in it)
Employee Details (When someone clicks on Grid row, it loads all the details about the employee)
I am using KendoGrid and it is getting all its data from an ActionMethod from my controller.
Now, when I click on the row, I have the following options:
I call some ActionMethod in Controller and return all the Details
Should I use partial View with a separate model so that ActionMethod in response calls RenderPartialView()?
Should I NOT create a partial View, have Actionmethod return JSON and parse it in the Model?
3.1 If I go for this option then would the JSON be part of model?
3.2 If it is not going to be part of model, how can I use JSON to render the View?
Or probably I am missing something basic here?

Yes you can use action method returning JsonResult. what needs to be done is keep the uielements you need to show on the click of grid row in the page itself. initiate a ajax call to the action method and on success update the values of the UI elements from the values received in JSON and make the entire DIV as visible which holds the total information.
Instead of passing entire HTML over the network I think you can opt for json.
An example you can find at following location
example

Controller calling itself and passing a value

How to pass data from the controller to itself?
Consider this example:
I have a page that consists of two parts: (1) a simple html form with a couple of text boxes and a submit button and (2) a table that is updated when the button from part (1) is pressed. When it happens, the data from the form has to be appended to the end of the table.
As I see it, there should exist a List of objects. Every time the button is pressed, the controller is called with two parameters: the old list of objects and textbox values. Then, the controller generates the object, adds it to the list and passes the new list to the view. The view is rendered with the new data and rows are successfully added to the table.
However, that requires reloading of the page and that feels kinda wrong.
The problem is, that there is no static object that can contain the list permanently, or at least that exists during these controller-self-calls. If there was such, I would not have to pass the whole list (which, as I said, I can't even do) but just new textbox values.
I have heard that partial views can solve the problem, but I can't see how.
What can I do?

For starters, as you said you'd like to achieve this without javascript, I see no way of avoiding: reloading of the page and that feels kinda wrong.
Not sure as well how partial views will make things work since they're rendered from your main view and require the same or part of your model, so you'll need to have that data there.
You have to get the information back from the controller, and the controller must get this information somehow so as I see it, these are your options:
Keep part (2) inside your form, thus making both parts available when you hit the controller. Model will get populated with the values you need and then the data is available for you when you're back at the View.
Keep a hidden input field inside part (1) containing the data you require to create the list. It's similar in concept to option #1 but I don't like this method too much, you'll have to do some parsing on that input field and this is not very elegant.
You could also try use Session or database but I think the latter is an overkill and a hit on performance so I wouldn't go with that.

If you don't have a database backing the form data, you could use Session data to hold the List.
In the controller, do something like this:
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult AddToList(object newObject)
{
var list = Sesssion["List"] as List<Object>;
if (list == null) {
list = new List<Object>();
Session["List"] = list;
}
list.add(newObject);
return View(list); // Assuming the view is a strong-typed view with List<Object> as model
}
As for partial views, they do not alone solve the problem of reloading the page. The solve the problem of a reusable, self-containing component of the page. If you don't like the reload of the page, you can use partial views together with Ajax calls though, in order to refetch the table whenever a new item is added. Here is an example

asp.net mvc trigger jquery function

I have a quick question nothing to intense I hope.
In a crud template, when someone adds a new record into the database you can have an ajax form send the data off to the server then get redirected to the list of all the records in the database.
So the flow of events would be:
ViewResult Edit => Edit Razor View => ActionResult Edit => ViewResult AllRecords => AllRecords Razor View
I know you can have JQuery animate the introduction of the new record into the list.
I'm guessing you need to pass the newly added item to the Controller then get the Controller to pass that information to JQuery but what would be in the razor view to do this kind of thing.
So basically how do you get JQuery to animate the introduction of the new record into the list?

If I understand correctly, you want to have the item shown in the list after it has been added, but without doing a redirect.
If this is the case, you have two options.
When you submit the form and send the data to the controller's action method, you can either return JSON w/ the information on the new record, which would include the newly added Id. Then in the AJAX callback you would parse the returned JSON and feed it to some kind of template to populate the list.
Or much easier would be to send the information to the controller's action method, and once the record is added, pass that new record to a Razor view that has been set up to specifically render one row. You then return this rendered HTML in the AJAX call back and simply insert it to the end of the list.
Approach #2 is easier, but is not very reusable.

Redisplaying old data on a view mvc

I have an MVC application in which I create a search page to find projects I've created. Once the user enters the search criteria, the data is passed back to the controller as a model object and I take this data to search for any projects that match. The search page is redisplayed with the original criteria the user entered plus any projects that were found.
The user can now go an click on a row (the results of their search) and edit that data on another page. When the user hits the save button (on the other page), I save the data and go back to the search page. I don't have the original data (the search model object) to redisplay. How do I get it back? I'm thinking that I should just thorugh my model object that I got when the method was called through the controller into my session object and then retrieve it when I come back to the search page. Is there a more elegant solution to getting the data from the model object back when I return to the search page?

You can use TempData["whatevever"]= yourObject and the data there will exist until it is read the next time and then it is removed. Its like the session object, but is removed after you read it.