How to set a Razor layout in MVC via an attribute filter?

Question

I\'d like to set a default Razor layout via code in either a base controller or an attribute. It was mentioned in the Docs that this is possible, but I can\'t figure out how

Answer 1

The easiest way I can think of doing this is by having your controllers derive from a custom base class that overrides the View method:

public class MyControllerBase : Controller {
    public override ViewResult View(string viewName, string masterName, object model) {
        if(String.IsNullOrEmpty(masterName)) {
            masterName = GetDefaultLayout();
        }
        base.View(viewName, masterName, model);
    }

    public virtual string GetDefaultLayout() {
        return // your default layout here
    }
}

In the code above you could explicitly set the masterName to some hardcoded value. Or your Controllers could override the method to provide a Controller-specific layout. Or you could read it from some attribute on the Controller, something similiar to:

masterName = GetType().GetCustomAttributes().
             OfType().FirstOrDefault().DefaultLayoutPage;

Of course you'd have to create your MyCustomAttribute.