Features View Engine

Description

Features View Engine is an ASP.NET MVC view engine which enables feature folder support. It resolves view paths using the controller's namespace.

Installation

Install using NuGet:

Install-Package FeaturesViewEngine

Configuration

Default configuration

There is a default view engine - DefaultControllerFeaturesViewEngine. Register this view engine on the application start (usually in Global.asax):

ViewEngines.Engines.Insert(0, new DefaultControllerFeaturesViewEngine());

This view engine will resolve views by the controller's namespace. In these locations:

%feature%/{0}.cshtml
%feature%/Views/{0}.cshtml
%feature%/Views/{1}{0}.cshtml

The %feature% placeholder will match the controller's namespace excluding an assembly name. For example, you have a controller in the namespace - MyAssembly.Web.Features.HomePage and the assembly name is - MyAssembly.Web. Then the %feature% placeholder will be replaced with path - ~/Features/HomePage.

NOTE: This view engine resolves only paths for views which have a controller. You should create a separate view engine for views which are rendered without a controller.

Custom paths

If you have a different convention for view path, then you can create a derived view engine from ControllerFeaturesViewEngine and define your paths. You can user DefaultControllerFeaturesViewEngine as a template:

public sealed class DefaultControllerFeaturesViewEngine : ControllerFeaturesViewEngine
{
    public DefaultControllerFeaturesViewEngine()
    {
        var paths = new[]
        {
            $"{FeaturePlaceholder}/{{0}}.cshtml",
            $"{FeaturePlaceholder}/Views/{{0}}.cshtml",
            $"{FeaturePlaceholder}/Views/{{1}}{{0}}.cshtml"
        };

        ViewLocationFormats = paths;
        PartialViewLocationFormats = paths;
    }
}

FeaturePlaceholder is a constant for %feature%.

Custom assembly name

Sometimes assembly name doesn't match the default namespace name. Then you should create a derived view engine from ControllerFeaturesViewEngine (see "Custom paths" section) and override NamespacePrefixToRemove method to return your namespace prefix to ignore.

Custom view path format

In some cases, it is useful to have a different view path format. For example, in a multisite environment, you might want to have different view paths for the same feature.

Then you can create a derived view engine (see "Custom paths" section) and override FormatViewPath method with your view path resolution logic.