Is there a way to process an MVC view (aspx file) from a non-web application?

Question

I have a background service running which sends out emails to users of my website. I would like to write the email templates as MVC views, to keep things consistent (so tha

Answer 1

This was my first attempt, and it failed. See above for the correct and working answer

This is as close as I was able to get, but it still didn't work. Now it complains about get_Server causing a NullreferenceException.

Just thought I'd post on here what I did and how far I got, in case anyone wants to continue the research.

I modified my csproj file to generate an assembly with the precompiled ASPX files, as such:

...
    true
    C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\bin\NETFX 4.0 Tools\aspnet_merge.exe
...


    
    
    

This created a "MyProject_CompiledAspx.dll", which I then referenced from my application. This, however, caused a new NullReferenceException.

It's a pitty that ASPX files, being as powerful as they are, are so tightly integrated with the ASP.NET server.