How do you use usercontrols in asp.net mvc that display an “island” of data?

Question

I am trying to find out how to use usercontrols in asp.net mvc. I know how to add a usercontrol to a view and how to pass data to it. What I haven\'t been able to figure out i

Answer 1

In the MVC Futures, available on codeplex , contains the RenderAction HtmlHelper extensions. This will allow you to create a controller for the ueser control and this controller will populate the ViewData used by the user control without having to resort to a base controller as was suggested.

In the View you would do

<% Html.RenderAction("Index", "UserControlController") %>

or one of the other overloads.

This will create an instance of the controller, execute the method and render the user control view into the main view. The main view controller does not need to know anything about the user control or its model/data.