Showing/Hiding Links in an ASP.Net MVC View

Question

I'm trying to figure out how to show/hide links for users based on their roles. I know how to set the authorize attribute for an action method, but I'm having trouble making links show hide in a view if the user is say, an admin or a manager in my roles database.

Any good articles or code example someone can point me towards?

Answer 1

In your view you can reference the IPrincipal user through the System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage's User property.

E.g. In your view you can have something like:

<% if (User.IsInRole("Admin")) { %>
    <%= Html.ActionLink("Admin only link", "Edit", "Users") %>
<% } %>

<% if (User.IsInRole("Manager") || User.IsInRole("Admin")) { %>
    <%= Html.ActionLink("Manager & Admin only link", "Edit", "Product") %>
<% } %>

HTHs,
Charles

Answer 2

This is one thing i really dont like with MVC (as in ASP.Net MVC, not the pattern) there is a tendancey to moving of UI logic into the markup.

There is no way to run Unit tests on that logic once its in the aspx.

Personly i think webforms with a suitable UI pattern (MVC or MVP etc) would better suit than having the page littered with conditional logic that cant be tested.