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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-29T22:47:50+00:00

I have a _ViewStart defining the master layout for my project (header, footer). In

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I have a _ViewStart defining the master layout for my project (header, footer).

In this project, I have several Areas. Every area has the same header and footer, plus its own side menu. For that, I created a _ViewStart on the root dir of that area. Here is the (simplified) code:

/Views/_ViewStart.cshtml

@{
   Layout = "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml";
}

/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml

    <html>
        <div>
            //header
        </div>
        <div>
            @RenderBody
        </div>
    </html>

Area Foo -> /Areas/Foo/Views/_ViewStart.cshtml

@{
    Layout = "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml";
}
<div class="row">
<div class="sidemenu">
    //default sidemenu for this area
</div>
<div>
        @RenderBody()
</div>
</div>

The page /Areas/Foo/Views/Bar/Index.cshtml won’t render and I get this error:

CS0103: The name ‘RenderBody’ does not exist in the current context

How to achieve this kind of master page nesting?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I hate to answer my own question, but here it goes:

    You can’t reference the site’s root _ViewStart directly on the _ViewStart of your area if you want a RenderBody there.

    So the solution is:

    /Views/_ViewStart.cshtml references /Views/Shared/_MainLayout.cshtml

    /Areas/Foo/Views/_ViewStart.cshtml references /Areas/Foo/Views/Shared/_AreaLayout.cshtml

    /Areas/Foo/Views/Shared/_AreaLayout.cshtml references /Views/Shared/_MainLayout.cshtml

    And that’s it. You have to use the “Shared” folder to have the method “RenderBody()” available.

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