Creating a View Before the Controller in ASP.NET MVC

Question

I created a Razor View by creating a new folder in my Solution under the Views folder, and then I right clicked that folder and selected "Add View".

Later, I went to my Controller folder and right clicked it, selecting "Add Controller". However, now I want to attach the view I created to my controller and it Visual Studio does not recognize that my view exists when I do:

return View("MyViewName");

How do I make Visual Studio recognize my already existing view? I would rather not resolve the issue by using Resharper to create my Razor view (since I've already created the view).

Thanks in advance!

did you make sure to name the view folder the same as the controller name? — Rickard, Sep 20 '12 at 18:14
Ah, yes having the folder name and controller name match works. However, now I have to make a new view folder for every controller? Even if I am only interested in maybe one or two actions per controller? — AlbertoPL, Sep 21 '12 at 06:27

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 20 '12 at 18:21

3

No need to write something, your folder must be named as controller. If you want other folder name, then type full path:

return View("~/Views/MyCustomFolder/MyViewName.cshtml");

answered Sep 20 '12 at 18:21

webdeveloper

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Display Name · Answer 2 · 2012-09-20T18:37:11.900

This is convention over configuration concept of ASP.NET MVC Your controller action should be called the same as view:

public class MyBeautifulController : Controller
{
  public ActionResult MyActionIndex()
  {
    return View();
  }
}

thank your view should be called and located like this: ~/Views/MyBeautiful/MyActionIndex.cshtml

Basically you dropping the last "Controller" in your controller class name.

This is COC (Convention Over Configuration). Now, if you want to call a view that is not called like your action, you will do the following in your action:

public class MyBeautifulController : Controller
{
  public ActionResult MyActionIndex()
  {
    return View("ViewCalledDifferently", new MyModel());
  }
}

and in this case, your view will be called and located like this: ~/Views/MyBeautiful/ViewCalledDifferently.cshtml and will accept MyModel as model type.

Hope this helps.

Creating a View Before the Controller in ASP.NET MVC

2 Answers2