title: What is a way to share a drop down inside a layout for use in all views?
body: <p>I am becoming more familiar with MVC 3 and the RAZOR view engine. I have a question regarding layouts and shared controls on pages.</p>
  
  <p>Let’s say I have a header section defined in my main layout. In that header is a dropdown I need to populate with project names. This dropdown will serve as a context for the entire site and is present on all pages. As an example, if the user selects “Project A” from the drop down, all of the views for the site will be based on “Project A”. Since this dropdown control is rather static and is used by the entire site, where is the best place to put the code to pull all the projects to display in the dropdown? In a Partial View? In a HTML helper?  Another thought is, if a user selects a new value, they would be taken to a dashboard or similar page for that newly selected project. I am trying to figure out how to reuse this control on every page in the site without having to keep wiring it up in every possible controller.</p>