Razor views vs partial views

Question

how does visual studio determine which is a view vs a partial view? Another question would be; is there a way to convert my views into partial views?

Answer 1

In Razor there is no distinction between views and partial views as there is in WebForms (.aspx vs .ascx). In Razor all views are templates. Those templates could have a Layout:

@{
    Layout = "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml";
}

In this case they are views. If there is no layout specified they could be considered as partial views. The Layout is usually defined in the ~/Views/_ViewStart.cshtml file.

This being said if from your controller action you return PartialView(); instead of return View(); this layout will not be applied.

I would recommend you reading the following blog post about Razor views and layouts.