Creating and Using Partial Views in ASP.NET MVC

To create a reusable UI component in ASP.NET MVC, you can add a partial view to your project. When adding the view, check the option for Create a partial view (.ascx). If your partial view uses a model, also select Create a strongly-typed view and choose the appropriate View data class.

Partial View Declaration

Below is an example of a strongly-typed partial view that accepts a collection of Blog entities.

<%@ Control Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl<IEnumerable<MVC_Test.Domain.Entities.Blog>>" %>

<% foreach (var blog in Model) { %>
    <!-- Render blog content here -->
<% } %>

Rendering Model Properties Inside the Partial View

Your partial view can output model properties just like a normal view:

<%: Model.Property2 %>

<h3><%: Model.Property3 %></h3>

Partial views are typically placed inside the Views/Shared folder so they can be reused across multiple views.

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Using the Partial View

You can render the partial view from another view using either RenderPartial or Partial.

RenderPartial (writes directly to the response stream)

<% Html.RenderPartial("PartialViewName", ProductModel); %>

Partial (returns an MvcHtmlString)

<% Html.Partial("PartialViewName"); %>

RenderPartial is ideal for large amounts of data because it writes output directly to the response stream. Partial returns a string, so it is less efficient for large datasets.

This pattern makes it easy to break your UI into reusable components while keeping your views clean and maintainable.