return both a file and a rendered view in an MVC3 Controller action

Question

is it possible to both return a file for download and update a view from a controller method call?

or a workaround is needed, maybe using javascript (calling a refresh of the page after loading)?

the file download is created on the fly along the parameters set in a ViewModel (search parameters from various controls on the page).

Answer 1

You can return the address of file using ViewModel or ViewData from your action, and use window.location.href as demonstrated in the following code at the end of your view.

Controller

public ActionResult Index()
{
    /* ... */

    ViewBag.FileName = "{FileName}";
    return View();
}

public ActionResult Download(string id) {
    /* ... */

    return File("{Path}", "{MIME type}", "{Desired file name}");
}

Markup

<script type="text/javascript">

    window.location.href = "/home/download/" + "@Ajax.JavaScriptStringEncode(@ViewBag.FileName)";

</script>

Answer 2

While it is not possible to return a FileResult alongside a ViewResult, you could use a meta refresh on the returned view to redirect to the file once the page loads.

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="600;url=/path/to/the/file" />

Answer 3

One request can have one response who's response type is defined in the response header so the basic answer is no.
What you could look at doing is returning a view which contains javascript which will then request the file download.