ASP.Net MVC have An Action render another Action

Question

I have two pages I need, and want to show for the url /index and /review. The only difference between the two pages is on the review I will have a review comment section to show and Submit button. Otherwise the two pages are identical. I thought I could create a user control for the main content.

However, if I could say under the Review action, flag to show review stuff and them return the rest of the index action.

How would you (generic you) do this?

Answer 1

Model example

public class MyModel
{
  public bool ShowCommentsSection { get; set; }
}

Controller actions

public ActionResult Index()
{
  var myModel = new MyModel();

  //Note: ShowCommentsSection (and the bool type) is false by default.

  return View(myModel);
}

public ActionResult Review()
{
  var myModel = new MyModel
  {
    ShowCommentsSection = true
  };

  //Note that we are telling the view engine to return the Index view
  return View("Index", myModel);
}

View (somewhere inside your index.aspx probably)

<% if(Model.ShowCommentsSection) { %>
  <% Html.RenderPartial("Reviews/ReviewPartial", Model); %>
<% } %>

Or, if Razor is your cup of tea:

@if(Model.ShowCommentsSection) {
  Html.RenderPartial("Reviews/ReviewPartial", Model);
}

Answer 2

// ... Make comment section visible
return Index();