Question

As I understand it, in ASP.NET MVC a httprequest is mapped to a controller/action.

• As one request is used to get one web page, could we call to these controllers “page controllers“?

My other question is about widgets (user controls) and RenderPartial method:

• If a widget represents a classic ASP.NET webcontrol or usercontrol, and I want to render this widget in a lot of pages, how could I avoid repeating the logic of the widget if this logic is in the “page controller“?

Answer 1

As one request is used to get one web page, could we call to these controllers “page controllers”?

Why would you? They’re named controllers. After all, an action on a controller doesn’t neccessarily serve a “web page”, it might respond using JSON data, XML, RSS or only a part of a web page (a ‘control’ if you want).

If a widget represent a classic asp.net webcontrol or usercontrol, and i want to render this widget in a lot of pages, how could avoid repeat the logic of the widget if this logic is in the “page controller”?

1. Make sure your (business) logic is not in the controller: it doesn’t belong there. The controller’s job is to map input/output, not to handle logic.
2. The views that contain your widget should have a ViewModel which contains the ViewModels needed in the widgets, e.g.

–

MainViewModel
{
    UserWidgetViewModel UserViewModel;
    List<Foo> Bar;
    // ...
}

UserWidgetViewModel 
{
    string UserName;
    int Reputation;
    //...
}

I felt this unelegant first, but I’ve been using this for some time now and I believe it nicely encapsulates the necessary data.

Hope that helps