Rendering a partial view from viewbag in c# mvc 3

Question

I have a solution with two projects and I'm trying to send a partial view from one project to the other.

So in project AI have a controller like this:

    public PartialViewResult Index()
    {
        return PartialView("_Forms");
    }

And in project BI have a controller like this:

    public ActionResult Index()
    {

        var form = pa.Index(); // <-- This is the controller from controller A

        ViewBag.CMSForm = form;

        return View();
    }

... so far so good, but now I need to render the partial view from ViewBag.CMSForm and I can't figure out how.

Answer 1

If you are only trying to render the partial view...

I was just messing with something similar to this, where I needed to render different partial views on one Index view based on where the user was routing from.

What I did was something like this...

public ActionResult Index()
{

    ViewBag.CMSForm = "_Forms";

    return View();
}

Then on your view

@{

string form= ViewBag.CMSForm;
 }
 @section CustomForm{


@Html.Partial(form)
}

Answer 2

I have adapted the solution from http://craftycodeblog.com/2010/05/15/asp-net-mvc-render-partial-view-to-string/ to your case.

Change your code from project B to this:

public ActionResult Index()
{

    var form = pa.Index(); // <-- This is the controller from controller A

    using (var sw = new StringWriter())
    {
        // Find the actual partial view.
        var viewResult = ViewEngines.Engines.FindPartialView(ControllerContext, form.ViewName);
        // Build a view context.
        var viewContext = new ViewContext(ControllerContext, viewResult.View, ViewData, TempData, sw);
        // Render the view.
        viewResult.View.Render(viewContext, sw);
        // Get the string rendered.
        ViewBag.CMSForm = sw.GetStringBuilder().ToString();
    }

    return View();
}

Answer 3

Why not use rendering of ControllerA.Index-action in view of ControllerB?

<p>
@Html.Action("Index", "ControllerA")
</p>