[ MVC 3 Ajax returning partial view of area ]

I am trying to return a partial view via ajax. My code likes below and it works fine when partial view is not in an area.

[HttpPost]
public ActionResult SearchLogsAjax(string searchParams)
{
    // Do some searching
    return PartialView("LogResults", searchResults);
}

Partial View is rendered when I first open the page. The problem occurs when I press the search button which makes an ajax call to the ActionMethod. If it is in Admin area I get the classic view not found error.

The partial view 'LogResults' was not found or no view engine supports the searched locations. The following locations were searched:

~/Views/Log/LogResults.aspx 
~/Views/Log/LogResults.ascx 
~/Views/Shared/LogResults.aspx 
~/Views/Shared/LogResults.ascx 
~/Views/Log/LogResults.cshtml 
~/Views/Log/LogResults.vbhtml 
~/Views/Shared/LogResults.cshtml 
~/Views/Shared/LogResults.vbhtml

Why it is not looking under Admin area which is the current area? Is there any way for me to specify the area name I wanted, by something like new { area = "Admin" }

On the other hand when I move mouse over the partial view name in the code, ReSharper shows the view which i expected.

Answer 1

You can specify the area name you want, by using the RouteValuesDictionary parameter and syntax same as you suggested

new { area = "Admin" }

But the trickier part to me is getting the proper method signature (meaning the signature that I intend to be using) because there are more than a couple of choices and it is EASY to get the wrong signature and still be syntactically correct.

In this case I think you want the signature:

public static MvcHtmlString ActionLink(
    this AjaxHelper ajaxHelper,
    string linkText,
    string actionName,
    RouteValueDictionary routeValues,
    AjaxOptions ajaxOptions
)

So modify the Ajax.ActionLink you currently have (which you did not post) to something like this:

@Ajax.ActionLink( "Link Text", "YourAction", "YourController", new { area = "YourArea" }, new AjaxOptions() { *the ajaxoptions you've been using* } )

Hope that helps.