How can I implement a site with ASP.NET MVC without using Visual Studio?

Question

I have seen ASP.NET MVC Without Visual Studio, which asks, Is it possible to produce a website based on ASP.NET MVC, without using Visual Studio?

And the a

Answer 1

You would do exactly what you did above, because you wouldn't use a model or controller in a hello world app.

All visual studio does is provide you with file creation wizards, so in theory, all you need to do is create the right files. If you want detailed specifications for the MVC project structure, good luck, most documentation is written on the assumption you are using visual studio, but you might be able to go through a tutorial step by step, and puzzle it out.

Your best bet is to find a downloadable demo project, use visual studio to reverse engineer the project structure, or try one of the open source .net IDE.

Answer 2

Note: if you added namespace you must have an assembly.

web.config example for Cheeso example project on opensuse linux under mono project.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
  <configSections>
    <section name="dotless" type="dotless.Core.configuration.DotlessConfigurationSectionHandler, dotless.Core" />
  </configSections>
  <appSettings>
    <add key="webpages:Version" value="1.0.0.0" />
    <add key="ClientValidationEnabled" value="true" />
    <add key="UnobtrusiveJavaScriptEnabled" value="true" />
  </appSettings>
  <system.web>
    <customErrors mode="Off"/>
    <compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.0">
      <assemblies>
        <add assembly="System.Web.Abstractions, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
        <add assembly="System.Web.Routing, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
        <add assembly="System.Web.Mvc, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
<!--        <add assembly="System.Web.Helpers, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
        <add assembly="System.Web.WebPages, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" /> -->
      </assemblies>
    </compilation>
    <authentication mode="None"></authentication>
    <pages>
      <namespaces>
        <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc" />
        <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Ajax" />
        <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Html" />
        <add namespace="System.Web.Routing" />
<!--        <add namespace="System.Web.Helpers" />
        <add namespace="System.Web.WebPages" /> -->
      </namespaces>
    </pages>
    <httpHandlers>
      <add path="*.less" verb="GET" type="dotless.Core.LessCssHttpHandler, dotless.Core" />
    </httpHandlers>
  </system.web>
  <system.webServer>
    <validation validateIntegratedModeConfiguration="false" />
    <modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true" />
    <handlers>
      <add name="dotless" path="*.less" verb="*" type="dotless.Core.LessCssHttpHandler,dotless.Core" resourceType="File" preCondition="" />
    </handlers>
  </system.webServer>
  <runtime>
    <assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">
      <dependentAssembly>
        <assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.Mvc" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" />
        <bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.0.0-2.0.0.0" newVersion="3.0.0.0" />
      </dependentAssembly>
      <dependentAssembly>
        <assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.Abstractions" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" culture="neutral" />
        <bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-4.0.0.0" newVersion="4.0.0.0" />
      </dependentAssembly>
    </assemblyBinding>
  </runtime>
  <dotless minifyCss="false" cache="true" web="false" />
</configuration>

Answer 3

Well, this is how the default VS skeleton for an MVC 1.x app looks like:

Content
 Site.css
Controllers
 AccountController.cs
 HomeController.cs
Models
Scripts
 (all the jquery scripts)
 MicrosoftAjax.js
 MicrosoftMvcAjax.js
Views
 web.config
 Account
  ChangePassword.aspx
  ChangePasswordSuccess.aspx
  LogOn.aspx
  Register.aspx
 Home
  About.aspx
  Index.aspx
Shared
 Error.aspx
 LogOnUserControl.ascx
 Site.master
Default.aspx
Global.asax
web.config

Dunno if that's what you're looking for... the key here is obviously the web.config file.

Answer 4

ok, I examined Walther's tutorial and got a basic MVC site running.

The files required were:

Global.asax
App_Code\Global.asax.cs
App_Code\Controller.cs
Views\HelloWorld\Sample.aspx
web.config

That's it.

Inside the Global.asax, I provide this boilerplate:

<%@ Application Inherits="MvcApplication1.MvcApplication" Language="C#" %>

And that MvcApplication class is defined in a module called Global.asax.cs which must be placed into the App_Code directory. The contents are like this:

using System.Web.Mvc;
using System.Web.Routing;

public class MvcApplication : System.Web.HttpApplication
{
    public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
    {
        routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

        routes.MapRoute(
            "Default",                      // Route name
            "{controller}/{action}/{arg}",  // URL with parameters
            new {                           // Parameter defaults
              controller = "HelloWorld",
              action = "Index", 
              arg = "" }                 );
    }

    protected void Application_Start()
    {
        RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);
    }
}

The Controller.cs provides the logic to handle the various requests. In this simple example, the controller class is like this:

using System.Web.Mvc;
namespace MvcApplication1.Controllers
{
    public class HelloWorldController : Controller
    {
        public string Index()
        {
            return "Hmmmmm...."; // coerced to ActionResult
        }

        public ActionResult English()
        {
            return Content("<h2>Hi!</h2>");
        }

        public ActionResult Italiano()
        {
            return Content("<h2>Ciao!</h2>");
        }

        public ViewResult Sample()
        {
            return View();  // requires \Views\HelloWorld\Sample.aspx
        }
    }
}

The Controller class must be named XxxxxController, where the Xxxxx portion defines the segment in the URL path. For a controller called HelloWorldController, the URL path segment is HelloWorld. Each public method in the Controller class is an action; the method is called when that method name is included in another segment in the url path . So for the above controller, these URLs would result in invoking the various methods:

• http:/ /server/root/HelloWorld (the default "action")
• http:/ /server/root/HelloWorld/Index (same as above)
• http:/ /server/root/HelloWorld/English
• http:/ /server/root/HelloWorld/Italiano
• http:/ /server/root/HelloWorld/Sample (a view, implemented as Sample.aspx)

Each method returns an Action result, one of the following: View (aspx page), Redirect, Empty, File (various options), Json, Content (arbitrary text), and Javascript.

The View pages, such as Sample.aspx in this case, must derive from System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage.

<%@ Page Language="C#"
  Debug="true"
  Trace="false"
  Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage"
 %>

That's it! Dropping the above content into an IIS vdir gives me a working ASPNET MVC site.

(Well, I also need the web.config file, which has 8k of configuration in it. All this source code and configuration is available to browse or download.)

And then I can add other static content: js, css, images and whatever else I like.