How to display WebForms .ascx as partial view in MVC 3

Question

I am building a new ASP.NET MVC 3 application. In this application, I would like to display an old WebForms user control (.ascx/.ascx.cs) in an overlay in my new MVC razor app as a partial view. I cant find anything about doing this on the web. Can anyone tell me if this is possible, and if so point me to some documentation? Thanks.

Solution 1

It is very bad practice to do such a thing. However this could be achieved by the following code:

@Html.Partial("_Foo")

Then in your _Foo partial view, you could have the following:

<%@ Control Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl<dynamic>" %>
<%@ Register Assembly="SomeAssembly" Namespace="SomeNs" TagName="foo" %>

<foo:SomeControl runat="server" ID="fooControl" />

Hope this helps. Have a look at this question:

• MVC 3: Add usercontrol to Razor view

Solution 2

The long answer involves 'yes you can, but....'

The short answer is, you shouldn't.

Without knowing the specifics of your .ascx file, you can render a partial using

@Html.Partial(PageName)

But, if you have any server controls they will not work. MVC doesn't support the same kind of call back control state functionality. So, you are using any thing resembling

<asp:Button runat=server />

then you're far better off re-factoring your partial.

Solution 3

I'm working on something similar. I've found these links that might help you.

http://www.codemag.com/article/1009061

How do I render a remote ReportViewer aspx page in MVC4?

How can I use a reportviewer control in an asp.net mvc 3 razor view?