how to add a code-behind page to a view or partial view

Question

I notice with the latest version of ASP.NET MVC that a View no longer defaults to having code-behind classes.

How do I go about adding a code-behind class now to a View or Partial View??

Solution 1

How to add a Code-behind page to a Partial View

Seems this wasn't particularly tricky, and is quite do-able. This answer worked for a Partial ViewUserControl but the same should apply for a Normal MVC ViewPage as well

1. Add a new Class file with the convention of <view filename & extention>.cs (i.e. view.ascx.cs)

2. Add using System.Web.Mvc; to the class

3. Change the class to Inherit from ViewUserControl<>.
   i.e. public class Foo:ViewUserControl

4. Add the following to the View's header:

   CodeBehind="View.ascx.cs" Inherits="Project.Views.Shared.View"

5. Copy the files out of the solution and drag back in to re-associate the two together. This may not be necessary in VS 2010+ and MVC 2+.

For this to work with a normal MVC View, you just need to inherit the class from "ViewPage"

Solution 2

I'm not sure why you are creating a code behind file, but if you really really do, then I would consider using the standard webforms approach instead.

I would also look into the basics of MVC to understand why page behinds are not needed.

Another explanation

How to use ASP:Chart without a code-behind (Option B)

Solution 3

To add a codebehind file to your aspx page, while still allowing it to be the target of an MVC view, do the following.

For a view page named Index.aspx...

Replace the following code....

<%@ Page Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage" %>

with

<%@ Page CodeFile="Index.aspx.vb" Inherits="Home_Index" %>

Then create a file called Index.aspx.cs (or .vb).

partial class Home_Index : System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage
{...}

or VB

Partial Class Home_Index
    Inherits System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage
    ...
End Class

That's it. The only thing special is using the correct Mvc.ViewPage base class.

Comments

[Andrew Harry]

It's quite simple really. I need to use code behind to populate the Chart series i'm using. It wouldn't let me use a normal MVC approach. This is a REAL world compromise, and it works.

[Dan Atkinson]

In that case, here is how you can use Chart without a code-behind: code-inside.de/blog-in/2008/11/27/…

[Andrew Harry]

So are you telling me you would prefer to have very messy hard to manage spaghetti code in your html? I think this is very valid use of code behind. It is not controller logic, it isn't presentation code. it is presentation preparation.

[Dan Atkinson]

You don't have to put all of that code in the view. It's merely put there to show the user that they don't need to use code-behinds to achieve the same thing.

[Andrew]

Thanks for that. I've found a quicker way to associate the two files together is to right-click them, choose Exclude From Project, then with 'Show All Files' selected right-click them again and re-include them.

[ashes999]

VS2010 associates them as soon as you create the class blah.ascx.cs (in the same directory as the aspx page). Awesome.