Using view model in Partial View defined in Layout

Question

This is all hypothetical, and wondering how and if this is possible.

I have two different strongly-typed views that use two different models. For example, I have a View1.cshtml, and View2.cshtml. Each has it's own model: View1Model.cs and View2Model.cs. Each of the view pages uses a common layout (_Layout.cshtml) that has a PartialView (_WhoAmI.cshtml).

In the View1Model.cs there is a UserID field (with various other fields) and the View2Model.cs also contains the same UserID (with different fields than View1Model.cs).

The partial view will lookup the UserID and display the User's information in a small display .DIV.

What is the best way to do this and keep the PartialView strongly-typed? Is it even possible when both models of the view are so different (other than the UserID)? If so, if I use this PartialView again in the _Layout, how do I keep it from doing the User lookup two times in the Layout page for each time the partial is called?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Instead of Html.Partial you could use Html.Action and have a child action rendering the partial and doing the necessary lookups.

Answer 2

I assume that if partial view has model of type dynamic then what you ask might be possible, but haven't tried it myself. At least MSDN says that dynamic variables are bypassing static type checking and at runtime they are only checked for existence of specific methods that were called from code.