Image equivalent of ActionLink in ASP.NET MVC

Question

In ASP.NET MVC is there an equivalent of the Html.ActionLink helper for Img tags?

I have a controller action that outputs a dynamically generated JPEG and I wanted to use the same Lambda expressions to link to it as I do HREFs using ActionLink.

Alternatively, a helper that just gives the URL to a route (again specified using Lambdas) would also be acceptable.

EDIT: I had originally specified that I was using Preview 5, however I see that a Beta has been released. So all-in-all the version number was an unneeded piece of info as I may be upgrading soon :-)

Answer 1

Url.Action() will get you the bare URL for most overloads of Html.ActionLink, but I think that the URL-from-lambda functionality is only available through Html.ActionLink so far. Hopefully they'll add a similar overload to Url.Action at some point.

Answer 2

In ASP.NET MVC Beta, you can use the Html.BuildUrlFromExpression method in the Futures assembly (which is not included in the default ASP.NET MVC install, but is available from CodePlex) to create a link around an image--or any HTML--using the lambda-style ActionLink syntax, like this:

<a href="<%=Html.BuildUrlFromExpression<MyController>(c => c.MyAction())%>">
     <%=Html.Image("~/Content/MyImage.gif")%>
</a>

To keep your image links borderless, you'll need to add a CSS rule like this:

img
{
     border: none;
}

Answer 3

I used a workaround to place a marker instead of text for ActionLink and then replace it with my image code. Something like this:

<%= Html.ActionLink("__IMAGE_PLACEHOLDER__", "Products").Replace("__IMAGE_PLACEHOLDER__", "<img src=\"" + myImgUrl + "\" />")%>

Not the most elegant solution but it works.

Answer 4

This question is older, and I just started recently with ASP.NET MVC when the RC was already out, but for those who find this question later like me this might be interesting:

At least in the RC you can use Url.Action() also with anonymous types, the result looks much nicer than the suggestions above, I guess:

<a href="<%= Url.RouteUrl("MyRoute", new { param1 = "bla", param2 = 5 }) %>">
   put in <span>whatever</span> you want, also <img src="a.gif" alt="images" />.
</a>

There are many other overloads for RouteUrl as well, of course.

Answer 5

You can use this control.It behaves like ActionLink.

http://agilefutures.com/index.php/2009/06/actionimage-aspnet-mvc

Answer 6

Is Url.Content() what you're looking for?

Give it something like Url.Content("~/path/to/something.jpg") it will turn it into the appropriate path based on the application root.

-Josh

Answer 7

You can use the URL.Action method

<a href="<%= Url.Action("Create")  %>"><img src="../../Content/Images/add_48.png" /></a>

Answer 8

It's pretty simple to achieve in MVC 2. I have created my own very simple extension method to support Lambda expressions for the Url.Action helper. It requires that you reference MVC 2 Futures.
Here's the code:

using System;
using System.Linq.Expressions;
using System.Web.Mvc;
using System.Web.Routing;

using ExpressionHelperInternal=Microsoft.Web.Mvc.Internal.ExpressionHelper;

namespace Bnv.Bssi.Web.Infrastructure.Helpers
{
    public static class UrlExtensions
    {
        public static string Action<TController>(this UrlHelper helper, Expression<Action<TController>> action) where TController : Controller
        {
            RouteValueDictionary routeValuesFromExpression = ExpressionHelperInternal.GetRouteValuesFromExpression<TController>(action);

            return helper.Action(routeValuesFromExpression["action"].ToString(), routeValuesFromExpression);
        }
    }
}

This is how you use it:

<img src="<%= Url.Action<YourController>(c => c.YourActionMethod(param1, param2)); %>" />