How do you access application variables in asp.net mvc 3 razor views?

Question

I set a Application variable in my global.asa.cs with:

    protected void Application_Start()
    {
        ...

        // load all application settings
            


        

Answer 1

Building on @Darin-Dimitrov pattern answered above, I passed a model into a partial view, which I loaded into a _Layout page.

I needed to load a web page from an external resource on Application Load, which will be used as the header navigation across multiple sites. This is in my Global.asax.cs

protected void Application_Start()
{
    AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas();

    RegisterGlobalFilters(GlobalFilters.Filters);
    RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);

    Application["HeaderNav"] = GetHtmlPage("https://site.com/HeaderNav.html");
}

static string GetHtmlPage(string strURL)
{
    string strResult;
    var objRequest = HttpWebRequest.Create(strURL);
    var objResponse = objRequest.GetResponse();
    using (var sr = new StreamReader(objResponse.GetResponseStream()))
    {
        strResult = sr.ReadToEnd();
        sr.Close();
    }
    return strResult;
}

Here is my controller Action for the partial view.

public class ProfileController : BaseController
{
    public ActionResult HeaderNav()
    {
        var model = new Models.HeaderModel
        {
            NavigationHtml = HttpContext.Application["HeaderNav"] as string
        };
        return PartialView("_Header", model);
    }
}

I loaded the partial view in the _Layout page like this.

     @{Html.RenderAction("HeaderNav", "Profile");}

The partial view _Header.cshtml is very simple and just loads the html from the application variable.

@model Models.HeaderModel
@MvcHtmlString.Create(Model.NavigationHtml)