ASP.NET MVC 3 - pass data to a partial view in Layout

Question

I'm working on a ASP.NET MVC 3 application, but I'm rather new to MVC in general.

I have a partial view in a my application layout view that needs to have data passed to it. this will appear on every page. Is there a way to make this happen so I don't have to load that data into the view model for every action in the entire site?

As in, if a user navigates to Mysite/admin/settings, I would like to have the partial view on the layout be able to somehow receive the data that it needs without me needing to put that code in the Settings action in the Admin controller.

On this same note, how do you pass data to the layout view of an application anyway?

possible duplicate of How to pass data to a PartialView in my layout? — jrummell
– jrummell, Commented Dec 15, 2011 at 19:51

Bassam Mehanni · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-15 19:51:17Z

1

In these situations I usually use a base ViewModel for my Views

public class ApplicationViewModel
{
  public string UserName {get; set;}
  ....
}

public class SettingsViewModel : ApplicationViewModel
{
}

all your views would inherit from that ViewModel. Your layout would expect it as well

_layout.cshtml:

@model ApplicationViewModel
....

<h1>hello @Model.UserName</h1>

hopefully this answers your question

answered Dec 15, 2011 at 19:51

Bassam Mehanni

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2 Comments

Crab Bucket Over a year ago

Sorry - this post stackoverflow.com/questions/4154407/… screams that assigning a model to a base view is a bad idea. As does a more experienced colleague. Downvoting

Bassam Mehanni Over a year ago

@CrabBucket It does add a restriction, you have to inherit the ApplicationViewModel for all views that use the same layout. If that is a restriction you can't live with, then this is not a solution you can use, simple as that. We make tradeoffs all the time. As an experienced programmer, you need to know when to evaluate each situation and decide what works and what doesn't. You live and you learn :)

Gabriele Petrioli · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-15 20:03:31Z

1

Partial only renders a view. You need to provide the model manually.

You can create an action for the view you want and render it with Html.Action( actionName ).

Make an action for example menu which will create a model that will be provided to the menu view.

Now you can call the @Html.Action("menu") from wherever, and it will be rendered autonomously. (you can ofcourse provide a controller name as well, and even custom routeData)

You might also want to set Layout = null; in the view to avoid using the master layout of the whole site.

edited Dec 15, 2011 at 20:03

answered Dec 15, 2011 at 19:48

Gabriele Petrioli

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1 Comment

jdavis Over a year ago

Can you please expand on this. It seems like possible a good solution, but I don't have enough to go on from your post. Could you share some examples or maybe a link to examples? Thanks.

Arman H · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-06 23:42:52Z

0

This is how I pass a value to the partial view from my layout page:

Layout page code:

Html.RenderPartial("_SubMenuLeft", new ViewDataDictionary { {"category", "MMG"} });

and in my _SubMenuLeft.cshtml (partial view)

@if (ViewData["category"] == "MMG")
{
  ...
}

Hope it helps someone for future reference.

edited Apr 6, 2014 at 23:42

Arman H

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answered Apr 6, 2014 at 23:02

Sunil Johnson

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