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I have been reading this link from Steven Sanderson about mobile web development http://www.asp.net/learn/whitepapers/add-mobile-pages-to-your-aspnet-web-forms-mvc-application, and I am trying to execute his razor code in aspx.

Razor code from url:

@{ 
    Layout = Request.Browser.IsMobileDevice ? "~/Views/Shared/_LayoutMobile.cshtml" 
                                            : "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml"; 
}

My aspx adaptation:

<%@ Page Title="" Language="C#" MasterPageFile=Request.Browser.IsMobileDevice ? "~/Views/Shared/mobile.Master" : "~/Views/Shared/site.Master" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage<dynamic>" %>

but this gives me this error:

ASP.NET runtime error: Only Content controls are allowed directly in a content page that contains Content controls.

Is there a way to do this in aspx?

quakkels
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1 Answers1

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The answer is one should not change the masterpage from the view. The controller should handle that.

Syntactically, the <@% Page > declaration isn't standard asp.net code and it won't be interpreted correctly, the error you get is probably because it is loading a nonexistent masterpage. But remember that statement is merely a design-time feature.

What you need to do is this:

  • Develop your view against a masterpage.
  • Build your 2nd masterpage, make sure to use the EXACT same names for any <asp:ContentPlaceholders> involved.
  • In the controller method that handles this, swap the masterpage. Perhaps a better way would be to build an attribute which inspects the request for whatever criteria, such as Request.IsMobile, and injects the correct master page. You can inject the masterpage using the ViewResult's MasterPage property.
Wyatt Barnett
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  • Not sure where you got that from, never mentioned Razor. Not that it would help, you need to set the masterpage before the rendering process starts, not during it. – Wyatt Barnett Jul 27 '11 at 18:56
  • If you follow the link, it shows Steve Sanderson doing what I am describing using the razor engine... I didn't know you could set the masterpage in the controller. Thanks for the new info, that's how I'll accomplish this! :-) – quakkels Jul 27 '11 at 19:01
  • I have to vote this down. It is absolutely terrible to swap a master in a controller. You are suggesting having every action method have the line "this.IsMobile ? "Mobile" : "Regular" or similar. A much better place would be a custom view engine or in the Layout.cshml like the article says and defining this behavior once instead of all over the place. – John Farrell Jul 27 '11 at 19:08
  • Look at where he is executing that -- in the _ViewStart.cshtml which is a special razor page that gets executed before things render. – Wyatt Barnett Jul 27 '11 at 19:14
  • @jfar -- well, with web forms you can't do it in a view. _ViewStart isn't in the view and *is* a good place for it. And an action filter is also appropriate. – Wyatt Barnett Jul 27 '11 at 19:15