Question

Is there a way to set convention when returning a partial view? For example:
I have the following:

HomeController ---> Home(action Method) --> _Home.ascx (partial view)

AboutController ---> About(action Method) --> _About.ascx (partial view)

I’m currently passing the partial view name explicitly to the PartialView helper(ie return PartialView(“_home”);)

note: without using T4MVC.

Thanks

Answer 1

The MVC runtime component that’s responsible for mapping a view name to the right file is called a ViewEngine. In case of ascx files it’s the default WebFormViewEngine. It exposes properties that contain the default lookup patterns. For example you could modify PartialViewLocationFormats and instead of this:

"~\Views\{1}\{0}.ascx"
"~\Views\Shared\{0}.ascx"

to be this:

"~\Views\{1}\_{0}.ascx"
"~\Views\Shared\_{0}.ascx"

Note that this change will apply to all of your partial view lookups.