T4MVC not picking up the Views in Areas (ASP.NET MVC 3 RTM)

Question

T4MVC is working fine everywhere except in Areas.

In Areas, it picks up the Controllers and the Actions, but not the Views.

So, I cannot write, in my controller:

return View(MVC.MyArea.MyController.Views.MyView);

Outside of the Areas, I CAN write:

return View(Views.MyOtherView);

I can also refer to actions in my area controllers:

MVC.MyArea.MyController.MyAction()

In other words:

a. I can get anything I want, if it is not in an Area.

b. I can get at the Actions in my Area controllers.

c. But I CANNOT get my Views in my Area.

What could the problem be?

TIA

EDIT:

The issue is getting T4MVC to rerun (see David Ebbo's answer and my "answer").

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 17 '11 at 07:28

What you have should work, and I verified it by:

Creating a new MVC3 app and adding the latest T4MVC 2.6.40 (via nuget)
Adding an Area named MyArea
Adding a controller named MyController
Adding a view named MyView
Make sure you rerun the T4MVC.tt custom tool

After that, I'm able to write:

namespace Mvc3Application.Areas.MyArea.Controllers {
    public partial class MyController : Controller {
        public virtual ActionResult Index() {
            return View(Views.MyView);
        }
    }
}

or

namespace Mvc3Application.Areas.MyArea.Controllers {
    public partial class MyController : Controller {
        public virtual ActionResult Index() {
            return View(MVC.MyArea.My.Views.MyView);
        }
    }
}

Note that in the second case, the token in 'My' instead of 'MyController', which is the way it always works.

Please try following those steps in a clean app to see if it works.

yes, that works. What also worked with my original project was uninstalling and reinstalling the t4mvc package (I already had version 2.6.40 installed, so not a version issue). So it seems as if the template didn't rerun automatically. What can I do to force this? — awrigley, Jan 17 '11 at 09:02

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 17 '11 at 14:24

I believe my issue is being caused by T4MVC not rerunning. As a result (I speculate) the T4MVC does not update to reflect changes in your project. For example, changing the parameters of an Action in a Controller. Or (specific to this question) adding a new View.

The T4MVC documentation on getting itself to rerun is vague, but points you at a VS add in called Chirpy.

Chirpy installs, and then you have to go in an configure it. You do this by opening Visual Studio, then going to Tools >> Options and choosing the Chirpy option.

See the image:

alt text

I had to add the template name T4MVC.tt bit to get it to work. Not sure if this is necessary or why. But it all now works fine.

If there is a better way of doing this, please let me know.

T4MVC not picking up the Views in Areas (ASP.NET MVC 3 RTM)

EDIT:

2 Answers2