How to put a view in another view in asp.net MVC? - asp.net-mvc

Question

Here I have a MainController in which I have two actions named Create and PhotoUpload. Here is the code for Create action.
// GET: Main/Create
public ActionResult Create()
{
return View();
}
// POST: Main/Create
// To protect from overposting attacks, please enable the specific properties you want to bind to, for
// more details see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=317598.
[HttpPost]
[ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
public ActionResult Create([Bind(Include = "Email,Password,FirstName,LastName,Gender,Birthday,ProfileImage,AboutUser")] User user)
{
if (ModelState.IsValid)
{
db.Users.Add(user);
db.SaveChanges();
return RedirectToAction("Index");
}
return View(user);
}
Here is the code for PhotoUpload action.
[HttpPost]
[ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
public ActionResult PhotoUpload(PhotoModel model)
{
if (model.PhotoFile.ContentLength > 0)
{
var fileName = Path.GetFileName(model.PhotoFile.FileName);
var filePath = Server.MapPath("/Content/Users/Images");
string savedFileName = Path.Combine(filePath, fileName);
model.PhotoFile.SaveAs(savedFileName);
}
return View(model);
}
public ActionResult PhotoUpload()
{
return View();
}
And these are the User and Photo models. This is the User Model
public partial class User
{
[System.Diagnostics.CodeAnalysis.SuppressMessage("Microsoft.Usage", "CA2214:DoNotCallOverridableMethodsInConstructors")]
public User()
{
this.Friends = new HashSet<Friend>();
this.Friends1 = new HashSet<Friend>();
this.Photos = new HashSet<Photo>();
}
public int UserId { get; set; }
public string Email { get; set; }
public string Password { get; set; }
public string FirstName { get; set; }
public string LastName { get; set; }
public string Gender { get; set; }
public System.DateTime Birthday { get; set; }
public string ProfileImage { get; set; }
public string AboutUser { get; set; }
[System.Diagnostics.CodeAnalysis.SuppressMessage("Microsoft.Usage", "CA2227:CollectionPropertiesShouldBeReadOnly")]
public virtual ICollection<Friend> Friends { get; set; }
[System.Diagnostics.CodeAnalysis.SuppressMessage("Microsoft.Usage", "CA2227:CollectionPropertiesShouldBeReadOnly")]
public virtual ICollection<Friend> Friends1 { get; set; }
[System.Diagnostics.CodeAnalysis.SuppressMessage("Microsoft.Usage", "CA2227:CollectionPropertiesShouldBeReadOnly")]
public virtual ICollection<Photo> Photos { get; set; }
}
This is the PhotoModel
public class PhotoModel
{
[Required]
public HttpPostedFileBase PhotoFile { get; set; }
}
And this is what I am getting as a view now. This is my /Main/Create View
And this is my /Main/PhotoUpload View
Now I want to put this PhotoUpload view instead of ProfileImage thing inside my Create View. Where do I change this and how?

Answer 1

You should use a ViewModel as that's the recommended practice for transferring data to and from views, in this case you can do the following as #StephenMuecke commented
ViewModel
public class UserViewModel
{
public string Email { get; set; }
public string Password { get; set; }
public string FirstName { get; set; }
public string LastName { get; set; }
public string Gender { get; set; }
public System.DateTime Birthday { get; set; }
public string ProfileImage { get; set; }
public string AboutUser { get; set; }
[Required]
public HttpPostedFileBase PhotoFile { get; set; }
}
Controller
[HttpPost]
[ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
public ActionResult Create(UserViewModel model)
{
if (ModelState.IsValid)
{
AddUser(model);
SavePhoto(model.PhotoFile);
return RedirectToAction("Index");
}
return View(user);
}
private void SavePhoto(HttpPostedFileBase file)
{
if (file.ContentLength > 0)
{
var fileName = Path.GetFileName(file.FileName);
var filePath = Server.MapPath("/Content/Users/Images");
string savedFileName = Path.Combine(filePath, fileName);
file.SaveAs(savedFileName);
}
}
private void AddUser(UserViewModel model)
{
var user = new User
{
Email = model.Email, Password = model.Password, FirstName = model.FirstName, LastName = model.LastName, Gender = model.Gender, Birthday = model.Birthday, ProfileImage = model.ProfileImage, AboutUser = model.AboutUser
};
db.Users.Add(user);
db.SaveChanges();
}
For further reading:
http://www.mikesdotnetting.com/article/188/view-model-design-and-use-in-razor-views
http://rachelappel.com/use-viewmodels-to-manage-data-amp-organize-code-in-asp-net-mvc-applications/