mvc3 - using partial views in a different area

Question

I have two questions regarding partial views...

1. When to use Partial views vs @helper methods, i have used both interchangeably and would like to get more consistent in their usage. What do you guys do?

2. How do you reference a partial view from another area.

I have an area called admin and i have a partial view in the regular Views directory. How do i use it .. i have tried the following which dont work as it cant be found.

@Html.Partial(VirtualPathUtility.ToAbsolute("~/Views/ControllerName/_PartialView"),
 Model)

other i have tried -

@Html.Partial("~/Views/ControllerName/_PartialView", Model)

Answer 1

Another option is to make the partial view you want to share between areas SHARED.

So you put it in the main ~/Views/Shared/ folder, e.g.

~/Views/Shared/_MyPartialView.cshtml.

You can then refer to it from any area by saying

@Html.Partial("_MyPartialView")

Answer 2

I'm not sure if you mean Html helpers, or razor helpers when you say "helpers" In any case, I only create Html helpers when it's a small, idividual item like a control.

If you mean Razor helpers, then they are different from Partials in that you can call them like functions, passing whatever parameters you want. Partials are largely stuck with the "model" system (and of course Temp/ViewData/Bag.

It's all about how you want to work with the code.

As for your Partial. You have to include the suffix.

@Html.Partial("~/Views/ControllerName/_PartialView.cshtml", Model)

Answer 3

I am just giving specific and simple example of what I'm trying to do. I need to be able to logoff from an area page using the partialview located in the main shared folder. Here's what I did:

1. At the area view I reference the partial view by

      <div class="float-right">
           <section id="login">            
             **@Html.Partial("~/Views/Shared/_LoginPartial.cshtml")**
           </section>
      </div>
   

2. At the Main shared folder where the _LoginPartial code was located I added {new = area ("")}, from:

   using (Html.BeginForm("LogOff", "Account", FormMethod.Post, new { id = "logoutForm", @class = "navbar-right" }))
   

   to:

   using (Html.BeginForm("LogOff", "Account", **new { area = "" },** FormMethod.Post, new { id = "logoutForm", @class = "navbar-right" }))
   

Hope that helps in some way!

Answer 4

Since the questioner asked about areas here's how to do it in an area

 @Html.Partial("~/Areas/Store/Views/Pages/Checkout.cshtml")