Dynamic link issue in an MVC 3 website - asp.net

Question

I'm creating my first ASP.NET MVC 3 website for my company's intranet. It's a pretty cool, I play audio recorded by our phone system and saved in our db. That's working good, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to do something that should be simple. Please forgive any syntax errors I most likely have, this is a rough draft.
I have a table in the Index View /Apps that list all the AppName's, and next to each AppName I want to display a link to another view, with the text of the link being a Count() of all CallDetails associated with that App.
I have two classes:
public class Apps
{
public int AppId { get; set; }
public string AppName { get; set; }
}
public class CallDetail
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public int AppID { get; set; }
public byte[] FirstName { get; set; }
public byte[] LastName { get; set; }
....etc
}
a context for each:
public class AppsContext : DbContext
{
public DbSet<Apps> Apps { get; set; }
}
public class CallContext : DbContext
{
public DbSet<CallDetail> CallDetails { get; set; }
}
a controller method for each:
// AppsController
private AppsContext db = new AppsContext();
public ViewResult Index()
{
return View(db.Apps.ToList());
}
// CallController method (from my current attempt)
public ActionResult CallCheck(int id)
{
bool? enabled = null;
var appcalls = from s in db.CallDetails
where s.AppID == id
&& s.Enabled.Equals(enabled)
select s;
string callnum = appcalls.Count().ToString();
return View(callnum);
}
It displays the AppName just fine in this portion of the View below, and I can create a link to a View for each associated CallDetail just fine. But I don't know how to display info I'd get from the CallDetail Controller since the View's Model is Apps and its Controller, AppsController.
#model IEnumerable<myMessagePlayer.Models.Apps>
...
#foreach (var item in Model)
{
<tr>
<td>
#Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.AppName)
</td>
<td class="appLink">
...
</td>
</tr>
}
I've tried many different methods, some that I might have gotten to work, but they seemed semantically un-MVC. So I figured I'd just ask a general "whats the standard practice?" type of question.

Answer 1

The path you are currently going down would end up hitting the database for each app you have in your database. There is a way to display all the information with only one hit to the database.
Your context needs to change to this:
public class ApplicationContext : DbContext
{
public DbSet<Apps> Apps { get; set; }
public DbSet<CallDetail> CallDetails { get; set; }
}
You could create a view model object called AppCallInfo that has three properties:
public class AppCallInfo
{
public int AppID { get; set; }
public string AppName { get; set; }
public int CallCount { get; set; }
}
In your Index action you need to do something like this:
public ViewResult Index()
{
var model = from a in db.Apps
join c in db.CallDetails on a.AppID equals c.AppID
where c.Enabled == enabled
group a by new { AppName = a.AppName, AppID = a.AppID } into g
select new AppCallInfo {
AppName = g.Key.AppName,
AppID = g.Key.AppID,
CallCount = g.Count()
};
return View(model.ToList());
}
Now you have everything you need for each row in your table in one object.
#model List<myMessagePlayer.ViewModels.AppCallInfo>
...
#foreach (var item in Model)
{
<tr>
<td>
#Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.AppName)
</td>
<td class="appLink">
#Html.ActionLink(item.CallCount, "ViewCalls", "Call", new { Id = item.AppID }, null)
</td>
</tr>
}
Using this method avoids hitting the database for each app you have in your table.

Answer 2

Is the view CallCheck a partial view?
In your index view you could use
#Html.RenderAction("CallCheck", "AppsController", new { Id = #Model.AppId } )
The syntax may not be 100% correct, but it should get you going in the right direction.