How can I reuse a controller for multiple partial views?

Question

I want to dynamically choose a partial view depending on what is sent to the controller, and have managed it but I feel that I am a) over complicating it and b) am unsure how to then easily get all page links. Each will be addressed in turn. Please ignore if I make a mistake below, it's from memory! At home it all works, I am after clarification on if there's a better way!

Firstly, what I've done:

I have a controller:

private Dictionary<int, string> pagesForFolder = new Dictionary<int, string>() {
         ... here I have my list of pages (index and pagename pairs)
}

public ActionResult Test(int id = -1)
{
   try {
        string pageName = "";
        var result = pagesForFolder.TryGetValue(id, out pageName);
        if(result) 
           string directiory = "~Views/folderA/_" + pageName +".cshtml";
           return PartialView(directory);
    }
    catch(Exception ex) {  ... }
    return View();
}

Then in folderA I have all my partial views for that section of my website. I have many sections and 1 controller per section. However, I am thinking this won't scale out that great as I'll have to keep rebuilding every time I add a page. Would it be better to store the pages in the DB?

Answer 1

I think your current approach is quite reasonable. I think your problem as you mentioned is you have to rebuild your application whenever you add or remove new entry to the dictionary.

As a solution for this you can store your page names in db and retrieve when you needed.

Instead of having a hard coded dictionary try something like this...

In your controller..

public ActionResult Test(int id = -1)
{
   try {
        string pageName =  GetYourPageFromDB(id);

        if(!string.IsNullOrEmpty(pageName)) 
                   string directiory = "~Views/folderA/_" + pageName +".cshtml";
           return PartialView(directory);
    }
    catch(Exception ex) {  ... }
    return View();
}

This may not be the exact answer try something like this...