ASP.NET MVC - Returning a PartialView to Ajax along with another object

Question

I am writing a single page ajax app with ASP.NET MVC - making heavy use of jQuery. I do something similar to the following throughout the app:

JS:

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Answer 1

one way to skip having to return a json with multiple parameters and your html encoded as json is to send an HTML always but you send a hidden field that has the status set in it or something like that..

success: function(data)
{
  if(data.find("#ajax-status").val()==="success")
  {
    $("#someDiv").html(data);
  }
  else
  {
    showPopup("You do not have access to that.");
  }
}

I wouldnt recommend this appraoch I would have two partial views one for the normal view and the other for the error/unauthorized case..

Answer 2

So - using the following posts I got this working:

Partial Views vs. Json (or both)

Render a view as a string

They both lay it out nicely, then I changed my code to the following:

C#:

public ActionResult GetSomePartialView(SomeArgumentModel someArguments)
{
    ReturnArgs r = new ReturnArgs();

    bool isAllowed = CheckPermissions(); 

    if (isAllowed) 
    {
        r.Status = 400; //good status ... proceed normally
        r.ViewString = this.RenderViewToString("_CaseManager");
    }
    else
    {
        r.Status = 300; //not good ... display permissions pop up
        r.ViewString = this.RenderViewToString("_DefaultView");
    }

    return Json(r);
}

public class ReturnArgs
{
    public ReturnArgs()
    {
    }

    public int Status { get; set; }
    public string ViewString { get; set; }
}

JS:

$.ajax({
    type: "GET",
    url: "/Home/GetSomePartialView/",
    data: someArguments,
    success: function (jsReturnArgs) { 

        if (jsReturnArgs.Status === 300) { //300 is an arbitrary value I just made up right now
            showPopup("You do not have access to that.");
        }

        $("#someDiv").html(jsReturnArgs.ViewString); //the HTML I returned from the controller
    },
    error: function (errorData) { onError(errorData); }
});