I think what you want is this:
ASP.NET MVC1
Html.ActionLink(article.Title,
"Login", // <-- Controller Name.
"Item", // <-- ActionMethod
new { id = article.ArticleID }, // <-- Route arguments.
null // <-- htmlArguments .. which are none. You need this value
// otherwise you call the WRONG method ...
// (refer to comments, below).
)
This uses the following method ActionLink signature:
public static string ActionLink(this HtmlHelper htmlHelper,
string linkText,
string controllerName,
string actionName,
object values,
object htmlAttributes)
ASP.NET MVC2
two arguments have been switched around
Html.ActionLink(article.Title,
"Item", // <-- ActionMethod
"Login", // <-- Controller Name.
new { id = article.ArticleID }, // <-- Route arguments.
null // <-- htmlArguments .. which are none. You need this value
// otherwise you call the WRONG method ...
// (refer to comments, below).
)
This uses the following method ActionLink signature:
public static string ActionLink(this HtmlHelper htmlHelper,
string linkText,
string actionName,
string controllerName,
object values,
object htmlAttributes)
ASP.NET MVC3+
arguments are in the same order as MVC2, however the id value is no longer required:
Html.ActionLink(article.Title,
"Item", // <-- ActionMethod
"Login", // <-- Controller Name.
new { article.ArticleID }, // <-- Route arguments.
null // <-- htmlArguments .. which are none. You need this value
// otherwise you call the WRONG method ...
// (refer to comments, below).
)
This avoids hard-coding any routing logic into the link.
<a href="/Item/Login/5">Title</a>
This will give you the following html output, assuming:
article.Title = "Title"article.ArticleID = 5- you still have the following route defined
.
.
routes.MapRoute(
"Default", // Route name
"{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = "" } // Parameter defaults
);
In your action method, return Json(object) to return JSON to your page.
public ActionResult SomeActionMethod() {
return Json(new {foo="bar", baz="Blech"});
}
Then just call the action method using Ajax. You could use one of the helper methods from the ViewPage such as
<%= Ajax.ActionLink("SomeActionMethod", new AjaxOptions {OnSuccess="somemethod"}) %>
SomeMethod would be a javascript method that then evaluates the Json object returned.
If you want to return a plain string, you can just use the ContentResult:
public ActionResult SomeActionMethod() {
return Content("hello world!");
}
ContentResult by default returns a text/plain as its contentType.
This is overloadable so you can also do:
return Content("<xml>This is poorly formatted xml.</xml>", "text/xml");
Best Answer
The jQuery UI library has a dialog widget that I use for things like this. While it's a plugin, IMO, the best practice is simply not rolling your own dialog widget.
http://jqueryui.com/demos/dialog/