ViewUserControl containing ViewPage

Question

Is there a way to get a reference for the ViewPage that contains a parital view from the partial view ??

Answer 1

Not 100% but I don't think this is possible. What specifically do you want to reference in the ViewPage from the Partial? Couldn't you just share a Model between the ViewPage and ViewUserControl?

Answer 2

It seems there is no standard property for this so you should pass ViewPage object to partial view yourself:

<% Html.RenderPartial("partial_view_name", this); %>

Answer 3

The absolute answer: NO

You need to use ViewData or Model to share it.

Answer 4

My solution was a baseclass for any models used by partial controls. It's useful for the times when you need to specify a model but want the partial view to have access to certain things from the containing View's model.

Note: this solution will support a hierarchy of partial views automatically.

Usage:

When you call RenderPartial supply the Model (for the view). Personally I prefer this pattern, which is to create a view in place on the page consisting of whatever the patial view might need from the parent model.

I create a ProductListModel from the current model, which makes the parent model available easily to the partial view.

  <% Html.RenderPartial("ProductList", new ProductListModel(Model) 
                       { Products = Model.FilterProducts(category) }); %>

In the partial control itself you specify the ProductListModel as a strongly typed view.

<%@ Control Language="C#" CodeBehind="ProductList.ascx.cs"
    Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl<ProductListModel>" %>

Model class for the partial view

Note: I'm using IShoppingCartModel to specify the model to avoid coupling from the partial back to the containing view.

public class ProductListModel : ShoppingCartUserControlModel
    {
        public ProductListModel(IShoppingCartModel parentModel)
            : base(parentModel)
        {

        }

        // model data 
        public IEnumerable<Product> Products { get; set; }

    }

Baseclasses:

namespace RR_MVC.Models
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Generic model for user controls that exposes 'ParentModel' to the model of the ViewUserControl
    /// </summary>
    /// <typeparam name="T"></typeparam>
    public class ViewUserControlModel<T>
    {
        public ViewUserControlModel(T parentModel)
            : base()
        {
            ParentModel = parentModel;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Reference to parent model
        /// </summary>
        public T ParentModel { get; private set; }
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Specific model for a ViewUserControl used in the 'store' area of the MVC project
    /// Exposes a 'ShoppingCart' property to the user control that is controlled by the 
    /// parent view's model
    /// </summary>
    public class ShoppingCartUserControlModel : ViewUserControlModel<IShoppingCartModel>
    {
        public ShoppingCartUserControlModel(IShoppingCartModel parentModel) : base(parentModel)
        {

        }

        /// <shes reummary>
        /// Get shopping cart from parent page model.
        /// This is a convenience helper property which justifies the creation of this class!
        /// </summary>
        public ShoppingCart ShoppingCart
        {
            get
            {
                return ParentModel.ShoppingCart;
            }
        }
    }
}