ASP.Net MVC render view from another controller to string

Question

I am struggling for hours to render a view from another controller to a string. I use that to generate email templates. For this I created a controller called EmailController that has a view ConfirmationEmail.cshtml I want to render that view in Home.Index action for example. The reason for this is organisation because I want to have the email views in ~/View/Email/... and EmailController will be used just for rendering them. Also ~/View/Shared/Email/... will be ok if you have another suggestion.

Do you suggest another approach?

I saw this thread ASP.NET MVC Razor: How to render a Razor Partial View's HTML inside the controller action but I cannot make it work.

I need something like:

    public ActionResult Index()
        {
                EmailController emailController = new EmailController();
                ControllerContext context = new ControllerContext(this.ControllerContext.RequestContext, emailController);
                EmailController.RenderPartialViewToString(emailController, "ConfirmationEmail", new EmailModel());
}

This does not work :( and the viewResult object in RenderPartialViewToString method is null. Do you have a solution for this?

I want this like an email generation utility ... and I will call it from another controller ... for example after a user register I will generate confirmation email and send it. Not all necessarily in Account.Register action. I added EmailController for better views organisation. Practically ConfirmationEmail is a shared view ... but I don't want it in the Shared folder. — Radu D, Jan 16 '12 at 15:41
You are using .cshtml files to render an e-mail, because Razor makes it convenient. But now you have a problem with MVC execution pipeline, and resolving it (if ever possible) will be ugly. I'd suggest rendering e-mails in a separate helper method, and calling it both from your EmailController and from your other controllers — Zruty, Jan 16 '12 at 15:45

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 16 '12 at 15:42

1

Did you check out MvcMailer project?

https://github.com/smsohan/MvcMailer/wiki/MvcMailer-Step-by-Step-Guide

answered Jan 16 '12 at 15:42

Bassam Mehanni

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This is exactly what I need. Wonderful library. – Radu D Jan 16 '12 at 16:28
@RaduD glad to help, I use it in my own application and it's really great, plus it's open source so if something goes wrong you have a chance to fix it and contribute it back :D – Bassam Mehanni Jan 16 '12 at 16:32

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 16 '12 at 15:48

0

Why not use FluentEmail? It takes a few seconds to setup using Nuget, and you get all the goodness of Razor templates, with a simple to use email tool.

answered Jan 16 '12 at 15:48

Erik Funkenbusch

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 16 '12 at 15:55

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EmailController.RenderPartialViewToString you passed in emailController instead of context

Modify that line to something like:

  EmailController.RenderPartialViewToString(context, "ConfirmationEmail", new EmailModel())

answered Jan 16 '12 at 15:55

Emmanuel N

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that does not work ... because the internals use Request.Data in order to find correct View – Radu D Jan 16 '12 at 16:11

ASP.Net MVC render view from another controller to string

3 Answers3