Area links don't generate in asp.net-core-mvc

Question

Following this guide I've been creating an Admin area: https://docs.asp.net/en/latest/mvc/controllers/areas.html

I can navigate to the admin pages by directly typing in the url, however I can't get links to generate

I've tried placing the following on the Admin index.cshtml:

<p><a asp-action="Index">Admin Index</a></p>
<p><a asp-controller="Home" asp-action="Index">Admin Index</a></p>
<p><a asp-area="Admin" asp-controller="Home" asp-action="Index">Admin Index</a></p>

Yet the all end up being non clickable anchors (no href)

In fact, when I view source, I actually still see the "asp-action" etc tags

<a asp-action="Index">Admin Index</a>

MVC doesn't seem to be processing the link helper tags?

Any idea what I've missed? Perhaps a configuration step somewhere?

Thanks

Answer 1

Got it!

I needed to add a _ViewImports.cshtml to my Areas folder

_ViewImports.cshtml needs the following inside:

@addTagHelper *, Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.TagHelpers

Odd how it wasn't mentioned in the tutorial

Answer 2

Seeing as how this is the first result in searching for my issue and even though my issue was slightly different, I'll post my answer here.

My tags weren't working either. I had this:

<a href="@Url.Action("Queues", "Digium", new {Area = "Reporting"})">

and this:

<a asp-action="CurrentCalls" asp-controller="Digium" asp-area="Reporting">

And nothing was working... it wasn't recognizing the area and the links were coming out as

/Controller/Action?Area=MyArea

I was really confused because I had an area that was working just fine. That's when I realized that I had forgotten to put the Area annotation on the controller:

[Area("Marketing")]
public class LinkedInController : Controller

Don't forget your area annotation!