Change Layout(Master Page) of view in ASP.NET MVC without recreate it

Question

I\'m using ASP.NET MVC 3 with Razor views. When you want to create a view you can choose a layout (master page) for your view, or leave it to choose Default (_Layout).

I

Answer 1

There are multiple ways to specify a different layout for a view, depending on your needs:

In the View

As mentioned in other answers, simply change the view's Layout property:

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

In _ViewStart.cshtml

MVC 3 added a default Views/_ViewStart.cshtml into which you can put logic which is shared by all views. You can also create additional _ViewStart.cshtml files in any Views subdirectory for additional custom logic (it will search up the hierarchy and in Shared folders, just like when finding any other view or partial).

Putting a lot of business logic into this feels like a violation of the "separation of concerns" principle, but at the same time it can be very handy.

Note that _ViewStart.cshtml inherits from StartPage, not WebPage, so its properties may be slightly different from what you're used to (e.g. you have to go through ViewContext to get the ViewBag).

@{
    if (ViewContext.ViewBag.IsAdmin) // or other custom logic
    {
        Layout = "~/Views/Shared/_AdminLayout.cshtml";
    }
    else
    {
        Layout = "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml";
    }
}

In the Controller action

The View() method has an overload which takes an explicit layout page (Intellisense refers to it as a "master page"):

    public ActionResult FooAction()
    {
        var model = new MyModel();

        return View("Index", "_CustomLayout", model);
    }