I have 2 controllers which are SearchController and SearchByStaffController respectively. They are very similar and both have an action with action name "Search". When I call View("Search") in their common super class, the confusion comes. Only the "Search" view with SearchController is rendered.
Does the MVC framework get only the first view that matches the name and ignore the rest?
I tried to pass the view path in View() and it worked. Would there be any side effect for doing so? I searched over the web and seems no one has done this before.
Thanks!
Does the MVC framework get only the first view that matches the name and ignore the rest?
Yes. The routing rules are aparsed (top to bottom) and when a rule is matched all end.
I tried to pass the view path in View() and it worked. Would there be any side effect for doing so? I searched over the web and seems no one has done this before.
You can but I don't like that because MVC is based on conventions. So, I see forcing the path of the view a way to broke a convention. Are you sure you can't simply create two routing rules for the two methods? So you can do something like this:
return RedirectToAction("Search", "Controller1");
and
return RedirectToAction("Search", "Controller2");
user932390,
mvc uses convention over configuration. this means that the 'search' view will have to be located in both the:
views/Search
and
views/SearchByStaff
folders respectively. the only way around this is to locate the search view under the views/shared folder, then the viewengine will find it there in both cases and use it (assuming they have the same model).
Related
I've a couple conceptual questions about the relationship between the Controller Action Method and the View:
I see that the name of the view is in function of Controller's name; the name of the controller class is the same of the namespace of the view (represented by the name of the folder where is the .cshtml file) and the name of the method is the same name of the .cshtml file which is the view. Why it works so? If I miss something in the explanation, How it exactly work?
Is there a way where I can put the .cshtml files (views) outside from the folder which match the name of the Controller's class name?
Is a restriction from MVC that names of .cshtml files match the name of the controllers action methods?
What exactly is the View() method which is returned in the controller action method?
Why the methods of the controller class are called "Controller Action Methods"?
Is a restriction from MVC that the names for the controllers end with "Controller" word?
Thanks to all
I would highly suggest running through a tutorial on MVC, such as this codeproject tutorial.
Naming convention are not set in stone, but in general allows for an understandable structure.
Yes, to navigate to a View you can specify the path. return View("~/this/is/your/path/ViewName.cshtml");
No. See above, you can return any view from any methods with the correct path, assuming the return type fits the return type of the method (Explained below).
View() is a C# "method" which tells the project to navigate to the View you specify, along with any parameters you pass. A more correct and in depth answer can be found by looking at the docs. The default return View() attemps to navigate to the return View("MethodName");
Action methods are methods with a return type of ActionResult. Redirect and View are examples of such. Think of them as similar to object return types, such as void or string, but instead ActionResult will tell your project to do something, such as redirect to another method or return a ViewResult via View().
No. Try it! It is however usually good practice, as it will easily separate your files by name, since you will likely have similar filenames n your project.
My Views folder has gotten crazy big! I would like to reorganize it so that the Views folder contains a list of Modules, and then each Module folder contains its share of the View (Controller) folders that currently appear under Views folder.
But of course this means going into each of my controllers and editing every view-returning method the explicit location of its view.
So instead of Controller Orders.Index method just having this:
return View();
I have to edit it to return this:
return View("~/Views/Orders/Index.cshtml");
You can imagine the suck level that this exercise attains over 50 or so controllers.
Is there some way that I can setup a routing or something per controller that will tell that controller's methods to go find their views in a defined subfolder of the Views folder?
It can be done with the help of CustomViewEngine
Follow this post and i hope you can provide your own locations to locate the view template.
MVC provide way where we can easily provide list of path to be searched
Locate view
Once you add CustomViewEngine, register it in Application_Start() event and then you are done :)
Happy coding
You could fix that by implementing a custom RazorViewEngine, where you can specify the search path for the views per request, per controller and so on.
Given a Controller name, and a Action name - "AdminController", "Index" for example, is it possible for me to get back all the possible Areas.
Does that make any sense to anyone?
Cheer,
ETFairfax.
It's not really supported to do this. In MVC 2, controllers aren't associated with areas. The way the implementation works is that the route is associated with a set of namespaces, and the controller factory looks only in those namespaces for a controller type to service the request. So there's no direct mapping from a controller to an area.
If you explain a little bit more on what you're trying to do, perhaps we can find an alternative method for getting you unstuck.
This is a basic question about the routing machinery. From a new MVC project, I have this in the HomeController:
public ActionResult MyPage()
{
return View();
}
In the Views\Home folder, I have MyPage.aspx. The routing is still the default of {controller}/{action}/{id}. When I type in http://localhost:1790/Home/MyPage, it is correclty routes to MyPage.aspx. Since I haven't said anything about which view to render, how does ASP.NET MVC know to correctly route to MyPage.aspx? Looks as though the ActionResult name can also be used as the View/aspx page name...unless there is something I misunderstand in how the routing works. I can see how I end up in the Home folder, since the controller name corresponds to the View sub folder name. But does the Action name also correspond to the aspx name?
Would that work if the page was a PHP?
ASP.NET MVC subscribes to what is known as the Convention over Configuration paradigm whereas if you follow their conventions, basic things such as routing concerns will happen for you. But they also allow you to configure them if desired.
MVC implicitly assumes that if you return just View(), that you want View("MyPage") (i.e. the action name). No sense in repeating yourself unnecessarily.
It won't find a PHP file by default, but I'm sure you could override that behavior if you really wanted to. I can't imagine a sane scenario where you would be mixing PHP and ASP.NET MVC, but who knows :)
Action name is the same as the view / partial view name.
asp.net mvc doesn't work with php as far as I'm aware.
As has already been stated, ASP.NET MVC uses convention over configuration. Out of the box, your folder structure is something like this (only showing relevant portions and doing it from memory so...)
Site Root
+ Controllers
HomeController.cs
AccountController.cs
+ Views
+ Home
Index.aspx
+ Account
Index.aspx
+ Shared
The default routing handler is something similar to the following:
"{controller}/{action}/{id}"
There are default values for the route, but if you have a url that is a/b/c, it will look for action a on controller aController and pass it c as a parameter if said method on the controller accepts parameters.
A couple of things about that then need to be clarified. Again, convention over configuration:
1) All controller classes must end with Controller if you're using the default engine. That way, when a request comes in and the {controller} value is parsed, the engine adds Controller to it, looks in the Controller folder (and, thus, namespace), and locates the class.
2) By default -- this can be changed -- all views for a controller must reside in the Views/{controller} folder or in the Views/Shared folder.
3) Public methods on a controller are, by default, actions. You can hide this with an attribute to make themethod unavailable to the engine, but by default they are public.
So, when a request comes in the route is compared against all known routes (global.asax) and the first route that matches the request is accepted. The route is then parsed into the component parts to determine the controller, action, and parameters for the action.
Once the controller is identified, the engine instantiates an instance of that controller and executes the matching method (action) should it be found.
The action will return an ActionResult. View is an extensino method that actually returns ViewResult (if I remember that correctly). The default view for an action is a view of the same name as teh action residing in the Views/{ControllerName} folder.
Routing is a beast unto itself and I'd recommend a good bit of reading on it if you're going to play with it. Minutes to understand but a lifetime to master sorta thing.
To my knowledge, BTW, there is no engine that will use a php page as a view for a controller action.
I've been playing around with ASP.NET MVC and had a question. Or maybe its a concern that I am doing this wrong. Just working on a lame site to stretch my wings a bit. I am sorry this question is not at all concise.
Ok, here's the scenario. When the user visits home/index, the page should show a list of products and a list of articles. The file layout is such (DAL is my data access layer):
Controllers
Home
Index
Views
Home
Index inherits from ViewPage
Product
List inherits from ViewUserControl<IEnumerable<DAL.Product>>
Single inherits from ViewUserControl<DAL.Product>
Article
List inherits from ViewUserControl<IEnumerable<DAL.Article>>
Single inherits from ViewUserControl<DAL.Article>
Controllers.HomeController.Index produces a View whose ViewData contains two entries, a IEnumerable<DAL.Product> and a IEnumerable<DAL.Article>.
View.Home.Index will use those view entries to call:
Html.RenderPartial("~/Views/Product/List.ascx", ViewData["ProductList"])
and Html.RenderPartial("~/Views/Article/List.ascx", ViewData["ArticleList"])
View.Product.List will call
foreach(Product product in View.Model)
Html.RenderPartial("Single", product);
View.Article.List does something similar to View.Product.List
This approach fails however. The approach makes sense to me, but maybe someone with more experience with these MVC platforms will recognize a better way.
The above produces an error inside View.Product.List. The call to Html.RenderPartial("Single",...) complains that "Single" view was not found. The error indicates:
The partial view 'Single' could not be found. The following locations were searched:
~/Views/Home/Single.aspx
~/Views/Home/Single.ascx
~/Views/Shared/Single.aspx
~/Views/Shared/Single.ascx
Because I was calling RenderAction() from a view in Product, I expected the runtime to look for the "Single" view within Views\Product. It seems however the lookup is relative the controller which invoked the original view (/Controller/Home invoked /Views/Product) rather than the current view.
So I am able to fix this by changing Views\Product, such that:
View.Product.List will call
foreach(Product product in View.Model)
Html.RenderPartial("~/Views/Product/Single.ascx", product);
instead of
View.Product.List will call
foreach(Product product in View.Model)
Html.RenderPartial("Single", product);
This fix works but.. I do not understand why I needed to specify the full path of the view. It would make sense to me for the relative name to be interpreted relative to the current view's path rather than the original controller's view path. I cannot think of any useful case where interpreting the name relative to the controller's view instead of the current view is useful (except in the typical case where they are the same).
Around this time I should have a question mark? To emphasis this actually is a question.
Because I was calling RenderAction()
from a view in Product
...
I do not understand why I needed
to specify the full path of the view.
It would make sense to me for the
relative name to be interpreted
relative to the current view's path
rather than the original controller's
view path
The part I think you're misunderstanding is the "execution location" for lack of a better or official term. Paths are not relative to your view, not even your "controller's view" as you put it. They are relative to your request URL, which defines a controller context. I may not be saying it very well, but if you spent a little time in Reflector looking at how URLs and routes are resolved, I think this would all fall into place in your head.
[edit:
I was thinking, you have 2 cases:
the Home controller is the only one that ever references Product / Articles List user control
the user controls are shared by several controllers
In the first case, the view user controls really belong to the home controller and it makes sense to put them in the home controller folder. In the second case, it makes sense to place them in the shared folder since they will be shared by controllers.
In either case, maybe you can place them in a sub folder. Like Views/Home/Products and then try RendarPartial("Product/Single") and see what happens? I don't know if it would try to resolve it to: Home/Product/Single and then Shared/Product/Single or not. If sub folders work, it seems to allow the logical seperation of Product and Article, while showing that they are still members of either the Home controller or Shared by all controllers.
]
Check out this blog entry by Steve Sanderson:
http://blog.codeville.net/2008/10/14/partial-requests-in-aspnet-mvc/
What you are doing isn't wrong, but it does seem to sort of go against the convention of View/Controller folder names. That said, it makes sense to want to define controller-agnostic view user controls and nesting them seems valid. So I dunno!
Anyways, the link just describes a method of instead of using RenderPartial to render a use control, it defines a method of RenderPartialRequest that renders the return value (in your case a user control) of a controller action. So you could add a Product and Articles controller with an Action List that returns your user control, and then call those two actions from the Home/Index view. This seems more intuitive to me, but just an opinion.
He also mentions subcontrollers from MVC Contrib, and I'm pretty sure there is desire for something like this to be a part of ASP.NET MVC release.
From looking at the MVCStoreFront sample this is how they have everything structured for calling RenderPartial
Views
Shared
ProductSingle
ProductList
ArticleSingle
ArticleList
Then render them via:
<% Html.RenderPartial("ProductSingle", ViewData["ProductList"]); %>
<% Html.RenderPartial("ProductList", product); %>
<% Html.RenderPartial("ArticleSingle", article); %>
<% Html.RenderPartial("ArticleList", ViewData["ArticleList"]); %>