I have a bunch of mostly-static pages (about 40), like: order-form01.html, order-form02.html, orderform03.html etc..
Should each of them have its own Controller/Action, or is that possible to have one dynamic Controller/Action for all of them?
My Url should look like this: http://MyProject/GlobalController/IndividualView and for the above example: http://MyProject/OrderForm/order-form01, http://MyProject/OrderForm/order-form02 etc..
Thanks in advance.
Yes it's very easy AND you don't need a switch statement or any other redundant logic.
public class MyController
{
public ActionResult Page(string file)
{
return View(file);
}
}
The magic is in the Route Map:
public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
{
routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");
// New MapRoute for your 40+ files..
routes.MapRoute(
"OrdeForm",
"OrderForm/{file}",
new { controller = "MyController", action = "Page", {file} = "" }
);
routes.MapRoute(
"Default",
"{controller}/{action}/{id}",
new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = "" }
);
}
Additionally:
I pass the View name in the query string.
Is not required, but is supported. The following urls will work:
// Url Parameters
http://MyProject/OrderForm/order-form01
http://MyProject/OrderForm/order-form02
// Querystring Parameters
http://MyProject/OrderForm?file=order-form01
http://MyProject/OrderForm?file=order-form02
The only catch is that you need to rename your html files to cshtml and place them in the correct directory for the ViewEngine to find.
@Erik, I also bit of new to mvc . Could you please explain your route map as of how is it possible with default raute again and again
Routes are broken down into 3 values:
Controller
Action
Parameter(s)
At a bare minimum, the controller and action are required. Where the values come from is not dependent on the Url. For example, in the following Url and Map Route...
// Url
http://MyProject/
// MapRoute
routes.MapRoute(
name: "Default",
url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = "" }
);
// Controller named "Home" matches the default in the above route
// Method named "Index" matches the default in the above route
public class HomeController {
public ActionResult Index() {
return new EmptyResult();
}
}
... everything still works because we provided a default value for the controller and action.
Ok let's break down the URL you want:
http://MyProject/OrderForm/order-form01
http://MyProject/OrderForm/order-form02
http://MyProject/<identifier>/{parameter}
You have one identifier that tells me route (OrderForm) and one changing value that because it changes and you want one value, should be a parameter.
http://MyProject/<identifier>/{file}
The name of the parameter makes no difference as long as it matches the signature of the controller method:
http://MyProject/{Controller}/{file}
public class HomeController {
public ActionResult Index(string file) {
return new EmptyResult();
}
}
or
http://MyProject/{Controller}/{einstein}
public class HomeController {
public ActionResult Index(string einstein) {
return new EmptyResult();
}
}
I named the parameter file, because it tells me it's the parameter is a name of a file, whereas the name einstein has no inherent description so is a terrible name for a variable.
http://MyProject/{Controller}/{file}
// MapRoute
routes.MapRoute(
name: "Default",
url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = "" }
);
// Controller named "Home" matches the default in the above route
// Method named "Index" matches the default in the above route
public class HomeController {
public ActionResult Index() {
return new EmptyResult();
}
}
Now we only want this route to run when the identifier is OrderForm so we don't allow that to be a value, we hard code it.
url: "OrderForm/...
Next we have a value that keeps changing, so we to add url parameter:
url: "OrderForm/{file}"
Now we have an issue because we aren't allowing MVC to parse values from the url to populate Controller nor Action so we must supply them.
routes.MapRoute(
name: "",
url: "OrderForm/{file}",
defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", file = "" }
);
Here we've mapped the url http://MyProject/OrderForm/{file} to:
public class HomeController {
public ActionResult Index(string file) {
return new EmptyResult();
}
}
Now I would choose to to update the defaults to something more specific and descriptive:
routes.MapRoute(
name: "",
url: "OrderForm/{file}",
defaults: new { controller = "OrderForm", action = "Index", file = "" }
);
public class OrderFormController {
public ActionResult Index(string file) {
return new EmptyResult();
}
}
Hope that all makes sense.
After the question edited :my solution is, you can have one controller/action and it should call view (cshtml). Your querystring data should be pass to view as of viewbag variable and partial views should be called acording to the viewbag variable. noo need of editing routing table even(if you are willing to pass it as a query string).
//your routeconfig will be
routes.MapRoute(
name: "default",
url: "{controller}/{file}",
defaults: new { controller = "OrderForm", action = "Index", file = "" }
);
//here no need to have 40 routing table one is enough
//your controller/action will be
public class OrderForm
{
public ActionResult Index(string file)
{
ViewBag.Orderform=file
return View(file);
}
}
//view bag variable is accessible in view as well as in javascript
But I would say as best practice, you can modify default routing to access all urls and navigate it to same controller/action and let that action to return the view. After that use angular / knockout js to handle client side routing and based on it the partial views should be loaded.(still your url will be different for your 40 pages but noo need to pass it as query string)
//your route table will be
routes.MapRoute(
name: "default",
url: "{controller}/{file}",
defaults: new { controller = "OrderForm", action = "Index"}
);
//your controller will be
public class OrderForm
{
public ActionResult Index()
{
return View(file);
}
Navigation should be handled by client side routing
