Question

I am developing a pluggable architecture using asp.net mvc 3 which you can drop plugin dll in Bin folder and restart the application then your plugin and its menu appears in whole site menu,

but I am wondering is it possible to manage where each ActionResult of any controller in any plugin should be rendered in which section of site dynamically, in other words I am trying to support flexible layout, it means sometimes ActionResult of some controller in some plugin rendered in top of page but maybe sometimes requires it rendered at the bottom of page,

Answer 1

You can use different layouts, that loads info into different zones each one and switch between them.

For example you can have a layout file where you load content from the controller into the header of the page and another layout file where you load same content on the footer.

When loading the View file from your controller you only need to determine on your business model where should be loaded this time and change the value of the layout to use on the View file.

@if (whatever condition you decide)
    Layout = "~/Views/Shared/_LayoutHeader.cshtml";
else
    Layout = "~/Views/Shared/_LayoutFooter.cshtml";