MVC Partial view with controller, ajax - how do I ge the partial controller to get data? - asp.net-mvc-4

Question

I'm learning MVC and am stumped by this. I'm trying to factor some common code that gets data and displays it in a WebGrid into a partial view that i can use on multiple pages.
My home controller Index method just does a return View(). The Home view looks like this:
#using (Ajax.BeginForm("SearchAction", "Search",
new AjaxOptions { UpdateTargetId = "data-grid", HttpMethod = "Post" }))
{
#Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.name)
<input type="submit" value="Search" />
}
#{
<div id="data-grid">
#Html.Partial("SearchResults", Model)
</div>
}
I'm trying to use Ajax to avoid losing my search form data when clicking a WebGrid pager link, which are rendered as normal links.
My SearchController looks like this:
public ActionResult SearchAction(string name)
{
return RedirectToAction("SearchResults", new { name = name });
}
public ActionResult SearchResults(string name)
{
//does database query and sticks results in the viewbag
//filter on optional name parameter
VieweBag.Members = MyQueryResults;
return PartialView();
}
My SearchResults shared view, data is passed in via ViewBag.Members:
#{
var grid = new WebGrid(null, rowsPerPage: ViewBag.Pagesize);
grid.Bind(ViewBag.Members);
#grid.GetHtml(// etc. etc.)
}
The results I'm getting is that the ViewBag.Pagesize and ViewBag.Members binding fails since there is no data in the viewbag. Obviously, my partial controller is not being called to do the initial query and put stuff in the ViewBag when the home page is first loaded. How do I make that happen?
The other weird thing is that if I just copy the database query code into my home controller (where it originally was) to force the original query, then if I put some text into the search field and do a search, the partial view renders by itself on a new page. Why is that happening, I thought it would only render as part of my home page.
I've cobbled this partial view together from various answers/places and have no doubt gotten something horribly wrong :\

Answer 1

The partial page won't pass through a controller, but simply render the view directly. If you want to pass view data to the partial view, there is an overloaded function that takes a viewdata dictionary. I'm sorry I can't be more detailed, but I'm on my mobile (waiting for my son to fall asleep in the other room) :)
Update:
If you want to trigger a GET action for your partial view, you can use Html.Action. Here are some useful links:
MSDN RenderAction
Difference between RenderPartial and RenderAction
Further, it would probably make sense for you to move your form tags into your partial view, but those are details for when you clean up the code.

Answer 2

Jonass is right, the ViewBag only propagates between the Controller and the View.
One thing you can do is make the model of the partial view be the same as the type of data you're putting into the ViewBag.
So if for example your MyQueryResults is of type:
IEnumerable<Result>
In your partial view you'd add
#Model IEnumerable<Result>
And then in the main view, you'd pass it through the Render method:
#Html.Partial("SearchResults", ViewBag.Members);
You'll need to tweak this a bit to make sure it's the right type, but this should do the trick.
Good luck!