asp.net - Model Binding With Disabled Textbox

Question

I have a textbox that I am defining as

<%= Html.TextBox("Username", Model.Form.Username, 
        new { @class = "textbox", @disabled = "disabled" })%>

The action is defined as

    [AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
    [ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
    public ActionResult EditLogin(LoginForm post) {

        ...

        return View(model);
    }

When I POST to this, Username will be blank. All other properties bind correctly, but if I change @disabled="disabled" to @readonly="readonly" the username binds properly and everything works.

It looks like model binding ignores values in disabled fields. Is there a way around this? I still need the field's value to bind to the model. I can use readonly but would prefer to use disabled so it is visually apparent to the user that they cannot edit the value of the field.

Answer 1

I believe a form field that is disabled does not submit anything. If you have a form and disable the foo field in that form, when you post the post will not have the value for the foo field. This is simply the nature of disabling a field in HTML and is not a MVC issue.