Setting an alternate controller folder location in ASP.NET MVC

Question

We can an MVC app that uses the default folder conventions for the HTML views, but we'd like to set up alternate "Services" folder with controllers used only for web services returning xml or json.

So the route "/Services/Tasks/List" would be routed to "/Services/TaskService.cs", while "/Tasks/List" would be routed to the standard "/Controllers/TaskController.cs"

We'd like to keep the service controllers separate from the view controllers. We don't think areas or using another project will work. What would be the best way to approach this?

Answer 1

You can do this using Routing, and keeping the controllers in separate namespaces. MapRoute lets you specify which namespace corresponds to a route.

Example

Given this controllers

namespace CustomControllerFactory.Controllers
{
    public class HomeController : Controller
    {
        public ActionResult Index()
        {
           return new ContentResult("Controllers");
        }
    }
}

namespace CustomControllerFactory.ServiceControllers
{
    public class HomeController : Controller
    {
        public ActionResult Index()
        {
           return new ContentResult("ServiceControllers");
        }
    }
}

And the following routing

 routes.MapRoute(
           "Services",
           "Services/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
            new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
            new string[] { "CustomControllerFactory.ServiceControllers" } // Namespace
        );


        routes.MapRoute(
            "Default", // Route name
            "{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
            new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
            new string[] { "CustomControllerFactory.Controllers"} // Namespace
        );

You should expect the following responses

/Services/Home

ServiceController

/Home

Controllers

Answer 2

In Asp.Net Core: I used AreaFeature library ServiceCollectionExtensions

First set your middleware;

    services.AddMvc(options => 
        options.EnableEndpointRouting = false).
        AddFeatureFolders().SetCompatibilityVersion(Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.CompatibilityVersion.Latest);

In the extenssion:

return AddFeatureFolders(services, new FeatureFolderOptions());

implement as according your requirement:

 public static IMvcBuilder AddFeatureFolders(this IMvcBuilder services, FeatureFolderOptions options)
        {
            if (services == null)
                throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(services));

            if (options == null)
                throw new ArgumentException(nameof(options));

            var expander = new FeatureViewLocationExpander(options);

            services.AddMvcOptions(o => o.Conventions.Add(new FeatureControllerModelConvention(options)))
                .AddRazorOptions(o =>
                {
                    o.ViewLocationFormats.Clear();
                    o.ViewLocationFormats.Add(options.FeatureNamePlaceholder + @"\{0}.cshtml");
                    o.ViewLocationFormats.Add(options.FeatureNamePlaceholder + @"\_Views\{0}.cshtml");
                    o.ViewLocationFormats.Add(options.FeatureFolderName + @"\Shared\{0}.cshtml");
                    o.ViewLocationFormats.Add(options.DefaultViewLocation);

                    o.ViewLocationExpanders.Add(expander);
                });

            return services;
        }

In my case i preferred a separated _View folder for views in the features folders like that

~/Features/Account/_Views/login.cshtml
~/Features/Account/AccountController.cs
~/Features/Account/AccountModel.cs