R – asp mvc DropDownList how to pass a selected item in visual basic .net

For MVC v5.1 use Html.EnumDropDownListFor

@Html.EnumDropDownListFor(
    x => x.YourEnumField,
    "Select My Type", 
    new { @class = "form-control" })

For MVC v5 use EnumHelper

@Html.DropDownList("MyType", 
   EnumHelper.GetSelectList(typeof(MyType)) , 
   "Select My Type", 
   new { @class = "form-control" })

For MVC 5 and lower

I rolled Rune's answer into an extension method:

namespace MyApp.Common
{
    public static class MyExtensions{
        public static SelectList ToSelectList<TEnum>(this TEnum enumObj)
            where TEnum : struct, IComparable, IFormattable, IConvertible
        {
            var values = from TEnum e in Enum.GetValues(typeof(TEnum))
                select new { Id = e, Name = e.ToString() };
            return new SelectList(values, "Id", "Name", enumObj);
        }
    }
}

This allows you to write:

ViewData["taskStatus"] = task.Status.ToSelectList();

by using MyApp.Common

I was struggling with a similar problem yesterday so if you are still getting the same result there is one more thing to consider. The DropDownList sometimes ignores the selected value of your SelectList, it's annoying but what it does is try to get the selected value from the ModelState, ViewData and Model by using the field name as a key. In your case you are storing the list in ViewData["Coordinator"], the key has the same name as the DropDown. Try this:

ViewData["CoordinatorList"] = new SelectList(userRepository.GetIdUserList(1), 
                          "ID",    "Signature",edCenter.Coordinator);

ViewData["Coordinator"] = dCenter.Coordinator;

Then in the view:

    <%=Html.DropDownList("Coordinator",((SelectList)ViewData["CoordinatorList"]).AsEnumerable(),
 new {style="width:175px"}) %>

If you want to see what's going on behind the curtains open reflector (or get the MVC source) and browse this method: System.Web.Mvc.Html.SelectExtensions.SelectInternal()