Putting HTML inside Html.ActionLink(), plus No Link Text?

Question

I have two questions:

1. I\'m wondering how I can display no link text when using Html.ActionLink() in an MVC view (actually, this is Site.Mast

Answer 1

Instead of using Html.ActionLink you can render a url via Url.Action

<a href="<%= Url.Action("Index", "Home") %>"><span>Text</span></a>
<a href="@Url.Action("Index", "Home")"><span>Text</span></a>

And to do a blank url you could have

<a href="<%= Url.Action("Index", "Home") %>"></a>
<a href="@Url.Action("Index", "Home")"></a>

Answer 2

I ended up with a custom extension method. Its worth noting, when trying to place HTML inside of an Anchor object, the link text can be either to the left, or to the right of the inner HTML. For this reason, I opted to provide parameters for left and right inner HTML - the link text is in the middle. Both left and right inner HTML are optional.

Extension Method ActionLinkInnerHtml:

    public static MvcHtmlString ActionLinkInnerHtml(this HtmlHelper helper, string linkText, string actionName, string controllerName, RouteValueDictionary routeValues = null, IDictionary<string, object> htmlAttributes = null, string leftInnerHtml = null, string rightInnerHtml = null)
    {
        // CONSTRUCT THE URL
        var urlHelper = new UrlHelper(helper.ViewContext.RequestContext);
        var url = urlHelper.Action(actionName: actionName, controllerName: controllerName, routeValues: routeValues);

        // CREATE AN ANCHOR TAG BUILDER
        var builder = new TagBuilder("a");
        builder.InnerHtml = string.Format("{0}{1}{2}", leftInnerHtml, linkText, rightInnerHtml);
        builder.MergeAttribute(key: "href", value: url);

        // ADD HTML ATTRIBUTES
        builder.MergeAttributes(htmlAttributes, replaceExisting: true);

        // BUILD THE STRING AND RETURN IT
        var mvcHtmlString = MvcHtmlString.Create(builder.ToString());
        return mvcHtmlString;
    }

Example of Usage:

Here is an example of usage. For this example I only wanted the inner html on the right side of the link text...

@Html.ActionLinkInnerHtml(
    linkText: "Hello World"
        , actionName: "SomethingOtherThanIndex"
        , controllerName: "SomethingOtherThanHome"
        , rightInnerHtml: "<span class=\"caret\" />"
        )

Results:

this results in the following HTML...

<a href="/SomethingOtherThanHome/SomethingOtherThanIndex">Hello World<span class="caret" /></a>

Answer 3

My solution using bootstrap components:

<a class="btn btn-primary" href="@Url.Action("resetpassword", "Account")">
    <span class="glyphicon glyphicon-user"></span> Reset Password
</a>

Answer 4

Here is (low and dirty) workaround in case you need to use ajax or some feature which you cannot use when making link manually (using tag):

<%= Html.ActionLink("LinkTextToken", "ActionName", "ControllerName").ToHtmlString().Replace("LinkTextToken", "Refresh <span class='large sprite refresh'></span>")%>

You can use any text instead of 'LinkTextToken', it is there only to be replaced, it is only important that it does not occur anywhere else inside actionlink.

Answer 5

This has always worked well for me. It's not messy and very clean.

<a href="@Url.Action("Index", "Home")"><span>Text</span></a>

Answer 6

I thought this might be useful when using bootstrap and some glypicons:

<a class="btn btn-primary" 
    href="<%: Url.Action("Download File", "Download", 
    new { id = msg.Id, distributorId = msg.DistributorId }) %>">
    Download
    <span class="glyphicon glyphicon-paperclip"></span>
</a>

This will show an A tag, with a link to a controller, with a nice paperclip icon on it to represent a download link, and the html output is kept clean