Rendering a view to a string in MVC, then redirecting — workarounds?

Question

I can\'t render a view to a string and then redirect, despite this answer from Feb (after version 1.0, I think) that claims it\'s possible. I thought I was doing something w

Answer 1

Updated.

Now that I understand that you want to use the view engine to generate the actual email in html, I propose the following:

Code to render action to text within a controller: http://mikehadlow.blogspot.com/2008/06/mvc-framework-capturing-output-of-view_05.html

Minor edits to your code:

public ActionResult Certifications(string email_intro)
{
     //a lot of stuff              
     ViewData["users"] = users;              
     if (isPost())             
     {                 
         //create the viewmodel                 
         var view_model = new ViewModels.Emails.Certifications.Open(userContext) { emailIntro = email_intro };                  

         foreach (var user in users)                 
         {                     
             if (user.Email_Address.IsValidEmailAddress())                     
             {                         
                 view_model.user = user;                         
                 view_model.certification302Summary.subProcessesOwner = new SubProcess_Certifications(RecordUpdating.Role.Owner, null, null, user.User_ID, repository);                         

                 SendEmail(view_model);                     
             }                 
         }                  
         return RedirectToAction("Certifications");             
     }              
     return View();         
 } 

 public void SendEmail(ViewModels.Emails.Certifications.Open model)         
 {             
    var vd = context.Controller.ViewData;             
    vd["model"] = model;             
    var renderer = new CustomRenderers();             

    // Implement the actual email rendering as a regular action method on this controller
    var text = this.CaptureActionHtml(c => (ViewResult)c.RenderEmail(model));

    var a = text;         
}