Question

I would like to include
@Html.ActionLink()
commands in my resource file, but can’t get them display properly when I call on the resource. Basically a resource entry like this:

<div>Click here to @Html.ActionLink("contact us", null)</div>

displays as

Click here to @Html.ActionLink("contact us", null)

instead of

Click here to contact us

in my view. Is there any way to get the razor tags to be properly read?

Answer 1

I don’t think you can embed actual code in the resource file, and expect the view engine to invoke that at render time, it probably thinks it’s just a string (and it shouldn’t have to think any more than that).

A better way would be to use string.Format.

Store the resource as:

<div>Click here to {0}</div>

And then in the View (i’m guessing your using Razor):

@string.Format(Resources.Global.LinkHtmlFormat, Html.ActionLink("contact us", null))

If your doing this a lot, you could also “sweeten it up” with a custom HTML helper:

public static MvcHtmlString ResourceBasedActionLink(this HtmlHelper htmlHelper, string resourceName, string linkText, string actionName, string controllerName, object htmlAttributes)
{
   var link = htmlhelper.ActionLink(linkText, actionName, controllerName, htmlAttributes);
   return MvcHtmlString.Create(string.Format(resourceName, link)));
}

And then:

@Html.ResourceBasedActionLink(Resources.Global.LinkHtmlFormat, "Contact Us", "Contact", Controller", null)