R – ASP.Net MVC Html.ActionLink() problems

asp.net-mvcrouting

I'm using the MVC beta to write a simple application to understand ASP.Net MVC. The application is a simple photo/video sharing site with tagging. I'm working off the MVC skeleton project. I added some Html.ActionLink()'s to the navigation bar, but I'm having a problem with one of the Html.ActionLink()'s that I added in one spot.

I want ~/Tags to show all tags from the database and I want ~/Tags/{tag} to show a listing of all the files that are tagged with {tag}. This works as expected, but when I follow a ~/Tags/{tag}, it changes the Html.ActionLink() in the navigation bar to be the same as the ~/Tags/{tag} link instead of just pointing to ~/Tags. I'm not understanding why the ActionLink() in my navigation bar is changing when I follow the ~/Tags/{tag}. If I navigate to a different link in the project, the ActionLink() works as expected.

I have the actionlink and route set up like this. My TagsController has this Index action. The int? is for a paging control. I have two Views, one called All and one called Details. What am I doing wrong?

        Html.ActionLink("Tags", "Index", "Tags") // In navigation bar

        routes.MapRoute(
            "Tags",
            "Tags/{tag}",
            new
            {
              controller = "Tags", action = "Index", tag = "",
            });

        public ActionResult Index(string tag, int? id )
        {  // short pseudocode
           If (tag == "")
             return View("All", model)
           else
             return View("Details", model) 
        }

Best Answer

I think you need to handle an instance of yoursite.com/Tags/, as you're only handling one with a tag in.

I would create another route:

routes.MapRoute(
  "TagsIndex", //Called something different to prevent a conflict with your other route
  "Tags/",
  new { controller = "Tags", action = "Index" }
);

routes.MapRoute(
  "Tags",
  "Tags/{tag}",
  new { controller = "Tags", action = "Tag", tag = "" }
);


/* In your controller */
public ActionResult Index() // You could add in the id, if you're doing paging here
{
  return View("All", model);
}

public ActionResult Tag(string tag, int? id)
{
  if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(tag))
  {
    return RedirectToAction("Index");
  }

  return View("Details", model);
}
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