Prefered way of building multi view layouts in ASP.NET MVC?

Question

I'm currently wondering about the prefered way to build multi view layouts using ASP.NET MVC.

For example in angular-based SPAs, loading different views into a layout is pretty straightforward:

<div ui-view="header"></div>
<div ui-view="content"></div>

.state("home", {
    views: {
        "header": { templateUrl: "app/_header.html" }
...

However in MVC, there seem to be multiple ways to achieve something, but I'm extremely confused about what 'method' is originally intended for what purpose.

@Html.RenderPartial() - renders a 'partial', defined by the parent
@Html.Partial() - seems to be the same as above
@RenderPage() - renders a 'page', defined by the parent
@RenderSection() - renders a 'section' by id, section defined by 'body view'

For a common "header, body, footer, nav" layout, what is the prefered (or the right) method? Or is it just a question of personal preference?

Just a suggestion to add to answer below - if you have an MVC project, you can look at the /Views/Shared folder and inspect the scaffolded _Layout.cshtml file. I think this will give you a starting point. Depending on what you're going for, you can also look at _ViewStart - link is relatively "old" but still great/quick read. Hth. — EdSF

mattytommo mattytommo · Accepted Answer · 2015-06-10T09:10:08

In your scenario, I would go for @Html.Partial just in case you need to manipulate the HTML inside your SPA (as you can assign it to a variable).

As for common elements, use RenderPartial, this can be slightly faster (albeit nothing to write home about).

Here's the explanations:

Html.RenderPartial

Renders the view directly to the response stream, similarly to how a normal web page is served by the server.

Html.Partial

Renders the view as a string, if you want to assign the result into a variable and manipulate it, then use this.

RenderPage

Same as RenderPartial, but allows you to specify a path to the view should you need to.

RenderSection

Usually used in layouts to define sections that will be included within child pages, this is especially useful if you want scripts/styles included in the head tag that you wouldn't be able to dictate within a child view.

There's also:

RenderAction

This takes a controller and action and will render the result of that action, useful if said view requires a different model and the data to populate that model is stored in a common function/library.

Prefered way of building multi view layouts in ASP.NET MVC?

1 Answers