I wanted to add an extension method to the HtmlHelper class so that developers could generically retrieve and AreaActionLink<T> without having to add the new { area = "MyArea" } each time as well as not have to specify a Controller. This all works well and good if I specify the namespace or put the namespace of the Area Controller in the Web.config.
For instance if I change the Area controller namespace to My.Web.Controllers rather than My.Web.MyArea.Controllers it throws a 404 but if I use the namespace it resolves properly.
public static MvcHtmlString AreaActionLink<T>(this HtmlHelper helper, string linkText, string actionName, object routeValues, object htmlAttributes) where T : IController
{
RouteValueDictionary routes = new RouteValueDictionary(routeValues);
string area = typeof(T).GetArea();
if (!routes.ContainsKey("area"))
routes.Add("area", area);
return helper.ActionLink(linkText,
actionName,
typeof(T).Name.Replace("Controller", string.Empty),
routes,
htmlAttributes as Dictionary<string, object>);
}
This works if the namespace is fully qualified when calling AreaActionLink
namespace My.Web.Areas.MyArea.Controllers
{
[Area("MyArea")]
public class OtherPlaceController : Controller
{
//...
}
}
and called like this:
<%=Html.AreaActionLink<OtherPlaceController>("Link Text", "MyAction")%>
but if I try to flatten the namespace hierarchy so I don't have to add a new namespace for ever Area it throws a 404.
namespace My.Web.Controllers
{
[Area("MyArea")]
public class OtherPlaceController : Controller
{
//...
}
}
It seems that the .Areas portion of the namespace is important but I can't figure out why...