ASP.Net MVC 4 Bundles

Question

Lots of code that I have seen reference this:

@section Scripts {
    @Scripts.Render("~/bundles/jqueryval")
}

Which is great, and it works...if "something" is included. Do I have to add a reference to get these? Use NuGet? Copy a DLL? Where does this come from?

When I run my project, I get a 404 for that resource.

Answer 1

You need to create the bundle. This is often done in the App_Start\BundleConfig.cs file in your ASP.NET MVC 4 project. It is all explained in Bundling and Minification .

In the BundleConfig class you need something like this (this method should execute in Application_Start):

public static void RegisterBundles(BundleCollection bundles) {
  bundles.Add(new ScriptBundle("~/bundles/jquery").Include(
              "~/Scripts/jquery-{version}.js"));

  bundles.Add(new ScriptBundle("~/bundles/jqueryval").Include(
              "~/Scripts/jquery.unobtrusive*",
              "~/Scripts/jquery.validate*"));

  // ... more registrations ...
}

The javascript source files should exists in the Scripts folder. The tutorial linked above explains how minified versions are bundled in the release build etc.

Answer 2

FYI - I have seen many examples of using Bundles in MVC, but most neglect to mention that the assemblies for this are in System.Web.Optimization.dll and you can get this from NuGet by adding the Microsoft ASP.NET Web Optimization Framework package.