title: DropDownListFor - display a simple list of strings
body: <p>I know there are many similar questions already, but I've spent hours trying to figure this out and none of the other answers seem to help!</p>
  
  <p>I want to just <em>display a list of strings</em> in a drop-down list using MVC. Is this really so difficult? I don't have a "Text" and "Value" separation (athough MVC appears to require one) - the string displayed to the user is my value.</p>
  
  <p>I've got the following so far:</p>
  
  <p>Controller:</p>
  
  <pre><code>public ActionResult Index()
  {
      return View(new HomeViewModel());
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>ViewModel:</p>
  
  <pre><code>public class HomeViewModel
  {
      public HomeViewModel()
      {
          Items = new SelectList(new[]
          {
              new SelectListItem { Text = "One", Value = "One" },
              new SelectListItem { Text = "Two", Value = "Two" },
          });
      }
  
      public SelectList Items { get; set; }
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>View:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;% using (Html.BeginForm()) { %&gt;
      &lt;% Html.DropDownListFor(x =&gt; x.Items, Model.Items); %&gt;
      &lt;input type="submit" value="Go!" /&gt;
  &lt;% } %&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But <strong>nothing</strong> I do seems to result in a drop down list being displayed. What am I doing wrong?</p>