Get inner value of the rendering parameter

Question

For the rendering parameters, I have a droplist which consists of the friendly name of the CSS-class which further consists of a value field for the actual CSS-class.

In my view when I try to retrieve the rendering parameter, I am always getting a friendly name and not the actual value:

var parameter = RenderingContext.Current.Rendering.Parameters["Background"];

<div class="@parameter">
</div>

Answer 1

From what I understand, you're using field of a Droplist type. Droplist fields always store their values as the name of the items.

What you may want instead is a Droplink field. In the frontend value selector they look the same, but in the background they store item ID instead of item name.

Answer 2

You should use Droplink (as @Marek mentioned above) and extract you parameter value like:

var selectedItemId = RenderingContext.Current.Rendering.Parameters["Background"];
var selectedItem = RenderingContext.Current.ContextItem.Database.GetItem(ID.Parse(Guid.Parse(selectedItemId)));
    var parameter = selectedItem["Value"];

or the easiest way if you have Glass Mapper in your project:

var parameter = GetRenderingParameters<YourRpModel>().Value;