Question

I’ve developed my own custom users and roles objects using ActiveRecord that do NOT extend the default Asp.Net providers and therefore I can’t get the user from the HttpContext. I can create a custom htmlhelper to render menus but should my views render the menu or the master page?

If it’s the master page how can I pass to the custom htmlhelper things like current user since some menu items depend on the user roles.

Also, how can I detect what controller is being viewed inside my master pages?

Answer 1

1) If your menu functionality is supposed to exist on multiple pages, then it makes sense to put it in the master page. If not, then the normal view.

2) A popular choice is to make all of your ViewModels inherit from a base view class, and then your Master page uses that. Example:

System.Web.Mvc.ViewMasterPage<ViewBase>
System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage<MyViewModel>

public class MyViewModel : ViewBase { }

3) You can pull out the specific controller from the route data. However, if you need specific functionality for certain controllers, I would just suggest using a different master page for those views than trying to make all of your views use the same master page.