Question

I have a Test.cshtml view where I have the ability to code something like:

@Url.Action(.....)

It works when the page is located under the Views folder.

It doesn’t work anymore when the page is located elsewhere like under Themes folder.

Answer 1

It doesn’t work anymore when the page is located elsewhere like under Themes folder.

That’s normal. Views should be located only inside the Views folder. They have nothing to do outside it.

The reason for this is the ~/Views/web.config file which indicates the type of all views:

<system.web.webPages.razor>
    <host factoryType="System.Web.Mvc.MvcWebRazorHostFactory, System.Web.Mvc, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
    <pages pageBaseType="System.Web.Mvc.WebViewPage">
      <namespaces>
        <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc" />
        <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Ajax" />
        <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Html" />
        <add namespace="System.Web.Routing" />
      </namespaces>
    </pages>
</system.web.webPages.razor>

Notice the pageBaseType attribute? This is what indicates that a view derives from the System.Web.Mvc.WebViewPage class which defines properties such as Html and Url helpers.

When you put a view somewhere outside the Views folder, I suppose you forgot to include such a web.config at the root so there is nothing specifying the base type of your razor pages and thus things like Url and Html helpers no longer exist.

So one possibility is to violate all standard ASP.NET MVC conventions and copy the ~/Views/web.config file to wherever you intend to place your views.