Asp.net-mvc – Where to put view-specific javascript files in an ASP.NET MVC application

asp.net-mvc

What is the best place (which folder, etc) to put view-specific javascript files in an ASP.NET MVC application?

To keep my project organized, I'd really love to be able to put them side-by-side with the view's .aspx files, but I haven't found a good way to reference them when doing that without exposing the ~/Views/Action/ folder structure. Is it really a bad thing to let details of that folder structure leak?

The alternative is to put them in the ~/Scripts or ~/Content folders, but is a minor irritation because now I have to worry about filename clashes. It's an irritation I can get over, though, if it is "the right thing."

Best Answer

Old question, but I wanted to put my answer incase anyone else comes looking for it.

I too wanted my view specific js/css files under the views folder, and here's how I did it:

In the web.config folder in the root of /Views you need to modify two sections to enable the webserver to serve the files:

    <system.web>
        <httpHandlers>
            <add path="*.js" verb="GET,HEAD" type="System.Web.StaticFileHandler" />
            <add path="*.css" verb="GET,HEAD" type="System.Web.StaticFileHandler" />
            <add path="*" verb="*" type="System.Web.HttpNotFoundHandler"/>
        </httpHandlers>
        <!-- other content here -->
    </system.web>

    <system.webServer>
        <handlers>
            <remove name="BlockViewHandler"/>
            <add name="JavaScript" path="*.js" verb="GET,HEAD" type="System.Web.StaticFileHandler" />
            <add name="CSS" path="*.css" verb="GET,HEAD" type="System.Web.StaticFileHandler" />
            <add name="BlockViewHandler" path="*" verb="*" preCondition="integratedMode" type="System.Web.HttpNotFoundHandler" />
        </handlers>
        <!-- other content here -->
    </system.webServer>

Then from your view file you can reference the urls like you expect:

@Url.Content("~/Views/<ControllerName>/somefile.css")

This will allow serving of .js and .css files, and will forbid serving of anything else.

Related Solutions

Asp.net-mvc – Compile Views in ASP.NET MVC

From the readme word doc for RC1 (not indexed by google)

ASP.NET Compiler Post-Build Step

Currently, errors within a view file are not detected until run time. To let you detect these errors at compile time, ASP.NET MVC projects now include an MvcBuildViews property, which is disabled by default. To enable this property, open the project file and set the MvcBuildViews property to true, as shown in the following example:

<Project ToolsVersion="3.5" DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <MvcBuildViews>true</MvcBuildViews>
  </PropertyGroup>

Note Enabling this feature adds some overhead to the build time.

You can update projects that were created with previous releases of MVC to include build-time validation of views by performing the following steps:

Open the project file in a text editor.
Add the following element under the top-most <PropertyGroup> element: <MvcBuildViews>true</MvcBuildViews>
At the end of the project file, uncomment the <Target Name="AfterBuild"> element and modify it to match the following:

<Target Name="AfterBuild" Condition="'$(MvcBuildViews)'=='true'">
    <AspNetCompiler VirtualPath="temp" PhysicalPath="$(ProjectDir)\..\$(ProjectName)" />
</Target>

C# – How to create a dropdownlist from an enum in ASP.NET MVC

For MVC v5.1 use Html.EnumDropDownListFor

@Html.EnumDropDownListFor(
    x => x.YourEnumField,
    "Select My Type", 
    new { @class = "form-control" })

For MVC v5 use EnumHelper

@Html.DropDownList("MyType", 
   EnumHelper.GetSelectList(typeof(MyType)) , 
   "Select My Type", 
   new { @class = "form-control" })

For MVC 5 and lower

I rolled Rune's answer into an extension method:

namespace MyApp.Common
{
    public static class MyExtensions{
        public static SelectList ToSelectList<TEnum>(this TEnum enumObj)
            where TEnum : struct, IComparable, IFormattable, IConvertible
        {
            var values = from TEnum e in Enum.GetValues(typeof(TEnum))
                select new { Id = e, Name = e.ToString() };
            return new SelectList(values, "Id", "Name", enumObj);
        }
    }
}

This allows you to write:

ViewData["taskStatus"] = task.Status.ToSelectList();

by using MyApp.Common