I’ve searched for an answer to this and I’ve come up with only two possibilities, both of which I’m not terribly keen on.
I have an existing ASP.NET MVC application that we are going to add a module to. This module could also be shared with another product that we have since it covers a lot of common ground. I don’t want to have to rewrite this module (even just the UI part) for two separate websites so my initial thought was that we just develop it as a stand-alone site (and since our product suite supports single sign-on across the suite there would be no issues with having to log in again to the new site). However, I was told that it must look like it is part of the existing site, it must sit inside its own tab (the master page has tabs to show you what section of the site you are in) as that is how it is being marketed – an integrated component of the existing product.
So, I was thinking of how to get this site to sit inside the tab of the existing site.
I thought the easiest thing would just be an iframe. We’ve already got an iframe on another tab (although its part of the same project – some legacy web forms stuff that rely on a third party control that’s incompatible with MVC) and it works… up to a point (It’s actually rather an ugly solution and the plan for the next release gets rid of it). I’d rather not do that again.
The other thought was that inside the tab’s content area just have a div that I can replace the content using AJAX calls as the user progresses through the workings of this new module so it all looks like it is one seamless site. Again, that fills me with dread as I don’t think it will work very well… and certainly we’ll lose out in areas such as Google Analytics (we’d either lose completely, or we’d have to hand craft bits) and allowing users to bookmark pages (the only URL they’d see is the first one when they open the tab as everything after that is made up of AJAX calls.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to pursue this further? Is there any way to have the first ASP.NET MVC application supply the master pages that the second will use? Or is there a similar mechanism in reverse where I can get the first ASP.NET MVC application to use the second as a provider of content into the firsts master pages?
Or are my realistic options IFrame or AJAX calls?
Colin,
I have a very similar requirement to yours with an additional need to run both sites in the same app pool. I have actually been able to come up with a proof of concept using portable areas. Not super elegant, but i believe it will do the trick.
Please do let me know if you find a better way.