ASP.NET MVC not serving default document

Question

I have an ASP.NET MVC application where the default page should be index.html which is an actual file on disk.

I can browse to the file using www.mydomain.com/index.

Answer 1

I found a way around this. If you want index.html to be in the root of your MVC application (i.e next to your controller/model/view/appdata etc folders), you can do this:

Say you have home.html, aboutus.html and contactus.html.

//this route matches (http://mydomain.com/somekindofstring)

routes.MapRoute(
    "SingleRootArg",
    "{id}",
    new { controller = "Home", action = "Details", id=""});

// so now that you have your route for all those random strings. 
// I had to do this for vanity urls. mydomain.com/ronburgandy  etc. however, 
// mydomain.com/index.html will also come in just how you'd expect. 

//Just an example of what you COULD do. the user would see it as root html. 

Public ActionResult Details(string id)
{

    //let me save you the trouble - favicon really comes in as a string *ANGER*
    if(String.IsNullOrEmpty(id) || id.ToLower().Contains("favicon.ico"))
        return Redirect("~/index.html");
    if(id == "aboutus.html")
        return Redirect("~/aboutus.html");
    if(id == "contactus.html")
        return Redirect("~/contactus.html");
    if(id == "index.html")
        return Redirect("~/index.html");
}

index.html aboutus.html index.html are now at the same level as my CSPROJ file.