return both a file and a rendered view in an MVC3 Controller action

Question

is it possible to both return a file for download and update a view from a controller method call?

or a workaround is needed, maybe using javascript (calling a refre

Answer 1

One request can have one response who's response type is defined in the response header so the basic answer is no.
What you could look at doing is returning a view which contains javascript which will then request the file download.