Partial Views in a Razor Class Library aren't found

Question

I have a simple RCL with following structure:

/Pages /Shared/ _Footer.cshtml

The content is very simple:

<h3>  _Footer.cshtml partial view.</h3>

I also have a ASP.NET Core Web App project with same folder structure:

/Pages _ViewImports.cshtml -ViewStart.cshtml /Shared _Layout.cshtml

Somewhere in the layout file I make a reference to the partial view:

<partial name="_Footer" />

Here is the problem:

• If I add a Project Reference of RCL to the Web App, the partial view is found and pages render fine.
• If I make a Nuget package from the RCL, add it to a local Nuget source and add a reference to the package, the partial view won't be found.

The partial view '_Footer' was not found. The following locations were searched: /Pages/_Footer.cshtml /Pages/Shared/_Footer.cshtml /Views/Shared/_Footer.cshtml

What could be the difference between adding a project reference and Nuget reference? I've verified the Nuget package does contain both the Class Lib's default and views assemblies.

Answer 1

According to the docs (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/razor-pages/sdk), I think you can use IncludeRazorContentInPack to include your .cshtml files in a NuGet package (it defaults to false).

Answer 2

In my case I wasn't even able to make it work in the scenario the op said it does work:

If I add a Project Reference of RCL to the Web App, the partial view is found and pages render fine.

I was just getting the standard error message that the partial view was not found (even if the searched paths were correct).

After some head banging I solved this problem by adding the following xml block to both .csproj files:

1. RCL: e.g. RazorUIClassLib.csproj
2. Web App: e.g. WebApp1.csproj

<ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.App" />
</ItemGroup>

Answer 3

I had the same problem, the solved writing the full path from the library Area, for example:

In the library i have:

Areas/Footer/Pages/_footer.cshtml

with my UI Proyect i called it like: <partial name="~/Areas/Footer/Pages/_footer.cshtml" model="My Model instance"/>

I hope it can help you

Answer 4

I found it works if you use dotnet pack instead of nuget pack. Note for dotnet pack package information is now read from csproj instead of nuget spec file.