How to correctly use Html.ActionLink with ASP.NET MVC 4 Areas

Question

I recently discovered Areas in ASP.NET MVC 4, which I have successfully implemented, but I\'m running into troubles with the @Html.ActionLink helper in my Razor vie

Answer 1

Just to add up my bit:
Remember, you're gonna need to have at least 2 areas in your MVC application to get the routeValues: { area="" } working; otherwise the area value will be used as a query-string parameter and you link will look like this: /?area=

If you don't have at least 2 areas, you can fix this behavior by:
1. editing the default route in RouteConfig.cs like this:

routes.MapRoute(
    name: "Default",
    url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
    defaults: new { area = "", controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);

OR
2. Adding a dummy area to your MVC project.

Answer 2

I hate answering my own question, but @Matt Bodily put me on the right track.

The @Html.Action method actually invokes a controller and renders the view, so that wouldn't work to create a snippet of HTML in my case, as this was causing a recursive function call resulting in a StackOverflowException. The @Url.Action(action, controller, { area = "abc" }) does indeed return the URL, but I finally discovered an overload of Html.ActionLink that provided a better solution for my case:

@Html.ActionLink("Admin", "Index", "Home", new { area = "Admin" }, null)

Note: , null is significant in this case, to match the right signature.

Documentation: @Html.ActionLink (LinkExtensions.ActionLink)

Documentation for this particular overload:

LinkExtensions.ActionLink(Controller, Action, Text, RouteArgs, HtmlAttributes)

It's been difficult to find documentation for these helpers. I tend to search for "Html.ActionLink" when I probably should have searched for "LinkExtensions.ActionLink", if that helps anyone in the future.

Still marking Matt's response as the answer.

Edit: Found yet another HTML helper to solve this:

@Html.RouteLink("Admin", new { action = "Index", controller = "Home", area = "Admin" })

Answer 3

Below are some of the way by which you can create a link button in MVC.

@Html.ActionLink("Admin", "Index", "Home", new { area = "Admin" }, null)  
@Html.RouteLink("Admin", new { action = "Index", controller = "Home", area = "Admin" })  
@Html.Action("Action", "Controller", new { area = "AreaName" })  
@Url.Action("Action", "Controller", new { area = "AreaName" })  
<a class="ui-btn" data-val="abc" href="/Home/Edit/ANTON">Edit</a>  
<a data-ajax="true" data-ajax-method="GET" data-ajax-mode="replace" data-ajax-update="#CustomerList" href="/Home/Germany">Customer from Germany</a>  
<a data-ajax="true" data-ajax-method="GET" data-ajax-mode="replace" data-ajax-update="#CustomerList" href="/Home/Mexico">Customer from Mexico</a> 

Hope this will help you.

Answer 4

How I redirect to an area is add it as a parameter

@Html.Action("Action", "Controller", new { area = "AreaName" })

for the href portion of a link I use

@Url.Action("Action", "Controller", new { area = "AreaName" })