ASP.NET MVC view locations and routing - asp.net-mvc

I have a base controller that I use to return basic views like this.
public ActionResult Index(string pageName)
{
return View(pageName);
}
public ActionResult LanguageSpecific(string ul, string pageName)
{
var result = View("sv/" + pageName);
return View(result.ViewName);
}
The controller's name is home is there a way that for it not to look for the sv content in /home but just in /sv
"EnglishRoute", // Route name
"{pageName}.aspx", // URL with parameters
new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", pageName = "" } // Parameter defaults
);
routes.MapRoute(
"SwedishRoute", // Route name
"{ul}/{pageName}.aspx", // URL with parameters
new { controller = "Home", action = "LanguageSpecific", ul = "",pageName = "" } // Parameter defaults
);
It looks in these locations:
~/Views/Home/sv/index.aspx
~/Views/Home/sv/index.ascx

When you call the View method you can pass in an app-relative path that starts with "~/" and then ASP.NET MVC will use the exact path you specify:
return View("~/UseExactlyThisFile.aspx");
That way it won't do its search in the various paths and locations that are pre-configured.
Please keep in mind that this doesn't have very much to do with routing (though it does a little bit).

If you try to localize your pages, why don't you use resources? With the pattern above you don't really take the advantages of mvc. Or do i misunderstand you? A simple solution would be to use an action filter which picks up the language identifier from the route and sets the UICulture. The Views then may use resources to localize their content.

Related

MVC routing a repeatable pattern?

A design goal for a website I'm working on is to keep the URL in the browser in a state where the user can copy it, and the link can be used from another browser/user/machine to return to the spot that the url was copied. (The actual changes will happen via AJAX, but the URL will change to reflect where they are.)
Example: If you were on the customer page looking at customer 123, and had details pulled up on their order #456, and full details on line 6 of this order, your url could simply be /customer/123/456/6
The challenge comes with a second feature: Users can add UI columns (analogous to adding a new tab in a tab view, or a new document in an MDI app) Each column can easily generate a routable url, but I need the url to reflect one or more columns. (E.G. User has both /customer/123/456/6 and /customer/333/55/2 in two side by side columns)
In a perfect world, I'd like the url to be /customer/123/456/6/customer/333/55/2 for the above scenario, but I don't know if MVC routing can handle repetitive patterns, or, if so, how it is done.
Can this be done via routing? If not is there a way to get this type of one-or-more functionality from Url?
You could create a custom route handler (see my previous answer) or derive from a RouteBase like NightOwl888 suggested. Another approach would be to simply use a model binder and a model binder attribute.
public class CustomerInvoiceLineAttribute : CustomModelBinderAttribute
{
public override IModelBinder GetBinder()
{
return new CustomerInvoiceLineModelBinder();
}
}
public class CustomerInvoiceLineModelBinder : IModelBinder
{
public object BindModel(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext)
{
var path = (string)bindingContext.ValueProvider.GetValue(bindingContext.ModelName).AttemptedValue;
var data = path.Split(new[] { "/customer/" }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
return data.Select(d =>
{
var rawInfo = d.Split('/');
return new CustomerInvoiceLine
{
CustomerId = int.Parse(rawInfo[0]),
InvoiceId = int.Parse(rawInfo[1]),
Line = int.Parse(rawInfo[2])
};
});
}
}
You define your route by specifying a star route data. This mean that the route parameter will contains everything following the action
routes.MapRoute(
name: "CustomerViewer",
url: "customer/{*customerInfo}",
defaults: new { controller = "Customer", action = "Index" });
Then in your controller, you bind your parameter with the same name as the star route parameter using the custom model binder defined above:
public ActionResult Index([CustomerInvoiceLine] IEnumerable<CustomerInvoiceLine> customerInfo)
{
return View();
}
You will need to add validation during the parsing and probably security too, so that a customer cannot read the invoice of other customers.
Also know that URL have a maximum length of 2000 characters.
You can do this with the built-in routing as long as you don't anticipate that any of your patterns will repeat or have optional parameters that don't appear in the same segment of the URL as other optional parameters.
It is possible to use routing with optional parameters by factoring out all of the permutations, but if you ask me it is much simpler to use the query string for this purpose.
NOTE: By definition, a URL must be unique. So you must manually ensure your URLs don't have any collisions. The simplest way to do this is by matching the page with the path (route) and adding this extra information as query string values. That way you don't have to concern yourself with accidentally making routes that are exactly the same.
However, if you insist on using a route for this purpose, you should probably put your URLs in a database in a field with a unique constraint to ensure they are unique.
For the most advanced customization of routing, subclass RouteBase or Route. This allows you to map any URL to a set of route values and map the route values back to the same URL, which lets you use it in an ActionLink or RouteLink to build the URLs for your views and controllers.
public class CustomPageRoute : RouteBase
{
// This matches the incoming URL and translates it into RouteData
// (typically a set of key value pairs in the RouteData.Values dictionary)
public override RouteData GetRouteData(HttpContextBase httpContext)
{
RouteData result = null;
// Trim the leading slash
var path = httpContext.Request.Path.Substring(1);
if (/* the path matches your route logic */)
{
result = new RouteData(this, new MvcRouteHandler());
result.Values["controller"] = "MyController";
result.Values["action"] = "MyAction";
// Any other route values to match your action...
}
// IMPORTANT: Always return null if there is no match.
// This tells .NET routing to check the next route that is registered.
return result;
}
// This builds the URL for ActionLink and RouteLink
public override VirtualPathData GetVirtualPath(RequestContext requestContext, RouteValueDictionary values)
{
VirtualPathData result = null;
if (/* all of the expected route values match the request (the values parameter) */)
{
result = new VirtualPathData(this, page.VirtualPath);
}
// IMPORTANT: Always return null if there is no match.
// This tells .NET routing to check the next route that is registered.
return result;
}
}
Usage
routes.Add(
name: "CustomPage",
item: new CustomPageRoute());
routes.MapRoute(
name: "Default",
url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);

How can I pass the URL to the controller while routing ignores it?

Is there a way within asp.net MVC 2 whereby I can route a request and have a portion of the URL ignored and passed to the controller as a variable?
My needs state that I must store pages dynamically in a database, and they should be accessible by looking at the URL and reading the URL segments to find the relevant page. Effectively, I need a Site controller, to which the remaining portion of the URL will be passed.
Site-Controller/this/is/a/page
So this in case the site controller would pick up the /this/is/a/page 'string'
Is this possible?
Thanks!
Yes, use a wildcard route, like:
routes.MapRoute(
"SiteController", // Route name
"Site-Controller/{*url}", // URL with parameters
new { controller = "SiteController", action = "Index" }, // Parameter defaults
null // constraints
);
Then your action looks like:
public ActionResult Index(string url)
{
}
Create a wildcard Route in Global.asax which captures everything after the first segment of the url and passes it to your Action method:
routes.MapRoute("Page",
"Site-Controller/{*urlsegments}",
new {
controller = "Site-Controller",
action = "YourAction",
urlsegments = ""
});
Make sure your Action method accepts a 'urlsegments' parameter and you can work with it from there:
public ActionResult YourAction(string urlsegments)
{
// Do something with the segments here
}

ASP.NET MVC Map String Url To A Route Value Object

I am creating a modular ASP.NET MVC application using areas. In short, I have created a greedy route that captures all routes beginning with {application}/{*catchAll}.
Here is the action:
// get /application/index
public ActionResult Index(string application, object catchAll)
{
// forward to partial request to return partial view
ViewData["partialRequest"] = new PartialRequest(catchAll);
// this gets called in the view page and uses a partial request class to return a partial view
}
Example:
The Url "/Application/Accounts/LogOn" will then cause the Index action to pass "/Accounts/LogOn" into the PartialRequest, but as a string value.
// partial request constructor
public PartialRequest(object routeValues)
{
RouteValueDictionary = new RouteValueDictionary(routeValues);
}
In this case, the route value dictionary will not return any values for the routeData, whereas if I specify a route in the Index Action:
ViewData["partialRequest"] = new PartialRequest(new { controller = "accounts", action = "logon" });
It works, and the routeData values contains a "controller" key and an "action" key; whereas before, the keys are empty, and therefore the rest of the class wont work.
So my question is, how can I convert the "/Accounts/LogOn" in the catchAll to "new { controller = "accounts", action = "logon" }"??
If this is not clear, I will explain more! :)
Matt
This is the "closest" I have got, but it obviously wont work for complex routes:
// split values into array
var routeParts = catchAll.ToString().Split(new char[] { '/' }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
// feels like a hack
catchAll = new
{
controller = routeParts[0],
action = routeParts[1]
};
You need to know what part is what in the catchAll parameter. Then you need to parse it yourself (like you are doing in your example or use a regexp). There is no way for the framework to know what part is the controller name and what is the action name and so on, as you haven't specified that in your route.
Why do you want to do something like this? There is probably a better way.

Asp.net MVC Route Mapping

I have view names like Folder-One/Page-One.aspx I want to do a base controller implimentation that all request go to one Base Controller, that returns the view based on the context. Obviously still keeping the .aspx in the path
I have folders like getting-started/application-faq.aspx but what I want to do is I want to create 1 controller that does all the return views, as the pages are basicly static html
Is this possible?
routes.MapRoute(
"Default", // Route name
"{controller}/{action}/{view}.aspx", // URL with parameters
new { controller = "Base", action = "ChooseView" ,view ="Page-One"}
);
and your action can choose view to show :
publict ActionResult ChooseView (string viewName)
{
return View("~/Views/"+viewName);
}

ASP.Net MVC: Request variables through Routes and View method

Basically if I wanted to make something a search page with paging I would need a url like:
/Topics/Index?search=hi&page=1
What I can't seem to figure out is how to:
A) Set a default route with no search and page 1
/Topics/Index?page=1 or even /Topics/Index?search=&page=1
B) use the View method to do the same
I do see that if I have a method on the control:
Index(String search, Int32? page)
And use the url:
/Topics/Index?search=hi&page=1 or /Topics/Index?search=hi
It gives me what I want in the method. I just need a way to get a default route for the Topic controller to create a default url with said request variables. I just don't think that
/Topics/Index/hi/1
Is conducive to a search url, mostly because there's no guarantee I'll have search terms or a page so it could end up like:
/Topics/Index/1
Anything you pass in the RouteValueDictionary that doesn't map to a part of your Url will get added as a querystring parameter. So you can do:
Url.GenerateUrl("Route", "Index", "Topics",
new RouteValueDictionary(new
{
page = this.Model.PageNumber,
search = this.Model.Search
});
So basically I resorted to handling the non values by setting up defaults on the controller. Not sure this is the best idea though.
In GLobal.asax:
routes.MapRoute
(
"TopicDefault",
"Topic/{action}",
new { controller = "Topic", action = "Index"}
);
On the Controller:
public ActionResult Index(Int32? parentForumId, Int32? pageNumber, Int32? amountToShow)
{
Int32 revisedPageNumber = pageNumber.HasValue ? pageNumber.Value : 0;
Int32 revisedAmountToShow = amountToShow.HasValue ? amountToShow.Value : 10;
Int32 revisedParentForumId = parentForumId.HasValue ? parentForumId.Value : 1;
IList<TopicCreateViewModel> modelValues =
Topic.GetListForGrid(revisedParentForumId, revisedPageNumber,
revisedAmountToShow, out realPage)
return View("Index", modelValues);
}

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