There are some helpful extension methods for using displaying enums in dropdown lists. For example [here](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4656758/mvc3-razor-dropdownlistfor-enums) and [here](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4656758/mvc3-razor-dropdownlistfor-enums).

But there is one problem that I encounter, which is that these helpers do not work if the enum is decorated with the Description attribute. The first example works perfectly with the Description attribute, but it doesn't set the selected value. The second example sets the selected value, but it doesn't use the description attribute. So I need to combine both methods into a working helper that does both correctly. I've a lot of variations to get it working but, no success so far. I've tried several ways to create a selectlist, but somehow it ignores the Selected property. In all my tests, the Selected property was set to true on one item, but this property is just ignored. 
So any ideas are most welcome!

This is the latest code that I've tried:

```
public static IEnumerable<SelectListItem> ToSelectList(Type enumType, string selectedItem)
    {
        List<SelectListItem> items = new List<SelectListItem>();
        foreach (var item in Enum.GetValues(enumType))
        {
            FieldInfo fi = enumType.GetField(item.ToString());
            var attribute = fi.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(DescriptionAttribute), true).FirstOrDefault();
            var title = attribute == null ? item.ToString() : ((DescriptionAttribute)attribute).Description;
            var listItem = new SelectListItem
            {
                Value = ((int)item).ToString(),
                Text = title,
                Selected = selectedItem == item.ToString()
            };

            items.Add(listItem);
        }
        return items;

    }

public static HtmlString EnumDropDownList2For<TModel, TProperty>(this HtmlHelper<TModel> htmlHelper, Expression<Func<TModel, TProperty>> modelExpression)
    {
        var typeOfProperty = modelExpression.ReturnType;
        if (!typeOfProperty.IsEnum)
            throw new ArgumentException(string.Format("Type {0} is not an enum", typeOfProperty));

        var value = htmlHelper.ViewData.Model == null
            ? default(TProperty)
            : modelExpression.Compile()(htmlHelper.ViewData.Model);

        return htmlHelper.DropDownListFor(modelExpression, ToSelectList(modelExpression.ReturnType, value.ToString()));
    }

```