user controls and asp.net mvc

Question

Here is one trivial question, but I am not sure how to handle that. I need to display list of categories on every page, and to be able to choose items from specific category to be displayed. I use asp.net mvc, and chosen to create user control that will display categories. My question is: What is the best approach to pass data to user control. I already found some blog posts

http://weblogs.asp.net/stephenwalther/archive/2008/08/12/asp-net-mvc-tip-31-passing-data-to-master-pages-and-user-controls.aspx

http://blog.matthidinger.com/2008/02/21/ASPNETMVCUserControlsStartToFinish.aspx

I would like also to hear your opinion.

PS. I'd like to hear Jeff's opinion, especially because of his experience with UC's on Stackoverflow

Answer 1

I'm using mvc components, which replaced ascx user controls in preview 4.
Example: http://blog.wekeroad.com/blog/asp-net-mvc-preview-4-componentcontroller-is-now-renderaction/
So, you call components action from View, which then choose View to render. You can pass data in this call also.

Answer 2

it is the mvc futures project. i will probably try this http://forums.asp.net/t/1303328.aspx. I need to render menu with categories.