Fix Pages/Shared layout in intro to RP

[Rick-Anderson]

See #7200

[guardrex]

Feedback on a related issue from Slack chat @ctolkien, @poke, and @TheSamsterZA ...

RE: Mixing MVC and RP in the same app, the RP guidance implies not to use a common layout page. The MVC guidance is a bit more helpful in regard to specifying the path in _ViewStart.cshtml, which implies that the layout can be anywhere (e.g., in Pages/Shared).

poke

... I often end up with both controllers and Razor Pages, which is a mess because I want to share the layout (not copy it), although that’s not “recommended”, so I end up having to specify full paths for layouts everywhere. It’s a bit annoying.

sameer.singh

Sounds like there's a "Don't cross the streams" lesson in there somewhere. 🤔

poke

There is! They don’t recommend you to mix layouts or components; but in reality, you usually want to share that.

chadt

We've shared layout and pages/mvc before too.... it works... doesn't feel too broken to me 🙂

poke

Yeah, sharing it is not broken, but the official stance is that one should not do that I think. At least the docs said that in the past.

[Rick-Anderson]

@rynowak what's the story on MVC and RP sharing layout?

[Rick-Anderson]

@danroth27 @davidfowl @rynowak what's the story on MVC and RP sharing layout? This question comes up frequently.

[danroth27]

Razor Pages will pickup the layout from the Views/Shared folder.

[guardrex]

... and MVC will pick up a layout from the Pages/Shared folder?

If so, should we recommend one place or the other in a mixed app, or should we say that it's up to the dev to decide based on their personal preference?

[danroth27]

and MVC will pickup a layout from the Pages/Shared folder?

No I don't believe so. @pranavkm could you please confirm?

[poke]

Test case 1: Default MVC template with a Pages/Test.cshtml:

Layout from Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml is picked up if the page has a Layout = "_Layout"; or if there’s a Pages/_ViewStart.cshtml with that line.

Test case 2: Default Razor Page template with a Controllers/TestController.cs and Views/Test/Index.cshtml.

Layout from Pages/Shared/_Layout.cshtml is picked up if the view has a Layout = "_Layout"; or if there’s a Views/_ViewStart.cshtml with that line.

---

So apparently designs are shared between both Razor pages and MVC.

If there’s both a layout in Views and Pages, then MVC will use the one from the Views directory, and Razor pages will use the one from the Pages directory.

[guardrex]

Ty @poke ... case of 🍺 to u for that one! That's what we needed to know (we'd have looked if only we had the time to check 🏃🏃🏃😅).

[Rick-Anderson]

The layout page

The menu layout is implemented in the Pages/Shared/_Layout.cshtml file.