Asp.net-mvc – Disable Client Side validation for one submit button in ASP.NET MVC4

Here's what I came up with, and it's working for me. I added the following method(s) to my controller base class. (You can always make these static methods somewhere else that accept a controller as a parameter I suppose)

MVC2 .ascx style

protected string RenderViewToString<T>(string viewPath, T model) {
  ViewData.Model = model;
  using (var writer = new StringWriter()) {
    var view = new WebFormView(ControllerContext, viewPath);
    var vdd = new ViewDataDictionary<T>(model);
    var viewCxt = new ViewContext(ControllerContext, view, vdd,
                                new TempDataDictionary(), writer);
    viewCxt.View.Render(viewCxt, writer);
    return writer.ToString();
  }
}

Razor .cshtml style

public string RenderRazorViewToString(string viewName, object model)
{
  ViewData.Model = model;
  using (var sw = new StringWriter())
  {
    var viewResult = ViewEngines.Engines.FindPartialView(ControllerContext,
                                                             viewName);
    var viewContext = new ViewContext(ControllerContext, viewResult.View,
                                 ViewData, TempData, sw);
    viewResult.View.Render(viewContext, sw);
    viewResult.ViewEngine.ReleaseView(ControllerContext, viewResult.View);
    return sw.GetStringBuilder().ToString();
  }
}

Edit: added Razor code.

What is this mystical force that causes the answer to reveal itself as soon as you post a question somewhere?

It looks like in MVC 3 you disable client-side validation on a button by adding the class "cancel" to it. So in my example:

<input type="submit" name="backButton" value="← Back"
 title="Go back to step 1." class="cancel" />

works great. And no ID attribute is needed either. If you have an actual style class on the button, just do this:

<input type="submit" name="backButton" value="← Back"
 title="Go back to step 1." class="style-name cancel" />