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Is there a Model First ASP.core framework for creating razor Views

I have been exploring MVC frameworks to create a webapp. One way I thought of reducing duplicated code is to keep everything model first (draws from EF Code first). I want to include as much meta data as possible in the model class. Using generic repositories (this part I have handled) I can manage most of DB operations through a one or two repositories behind a factory.
Now, Extending this to Razor Views. Basically, Attributes define the View such as Form layout, Type of component, Component Provider (3P or OpenSource), along with native System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations. A ComponentView Factory gets the right generic view template. The generic view template uses Reflection to then create generic CRUD views that largely fit for 90% of the use cases.
Does such a framework exist? Does this seem like a good approach?

How can I refactor my database access code outside my MVC project but keep my viewmodels inside?

I have an asp.net-mvc website with the following folders:
Controllers
Scripts
Views
ViewModels
Models
DomainModel
I now want to access a lot of this business logic and database access code and data in another .net app (a windows console app so not web at all) so i am refactoring to remove as much stuff as possible outside of the MVC project and into other projects in the solution so that code could be shared with this other solutions.
I have 2 main issues;
My main issue is that I am struggling to find a place to put the code that generates the ViewModel because a lot of this code I would like to reuse in my console app as the console app sends email which requires the same data that is in the view.
Another main issue is that i am struggling to see how i can move my database access code out of the MVC project while still having the ViewModels inside when many of my functions that instantiate my viewmodels start with a bunch of database access code.
Here is a bit of the detail and my process so far:
Step 1 - Move DomainModel into another project - success
So moving the DomainModel project was simple (as that was a lot of raw objects with some business logic on top - nothing web about it).
Step 2 - Thin out controllers - success
I have thinned out as much of my controllers as possible and moved any business logic or complicated data access logic into the Models folder. When i tried to move the models folder outside the MVC project a few things broke:
Step 3 - Attempt to move Models folder outside MVC Project - struggle
In thinning out the controllers, I have a number of different controller actions that go to a model class and return my ViewModel that i pass back into the view. Something like this (in my controller class):
public ActionResult ApplicationDetail(int id)
{
AppDetailViewModel applicationViewModel = Model.GenerateAppDetailViewModel(id);
return View(applicationViewModel);
}
So files in my Model folder are dependency on the ViewModel classes. I do want to centralize the GenerateAppDetailViewModel() function as that is used in multiple different controllers. Also, in my console app (which sends out email, i often want to get all the data that happens to be on some view so my code "wants" to leverage the viewmodel as well .. if i move it out of the MVC project then I can reuse but i think have the dependency issue (clearly i don't need SelectListItem in my console app but in other cases where they are just container objects of different data needed to generate a view I do want to reuse)
or another thing that broke was the dependency on:
System.Web.Mvc
because I have a lot of code that:
queries a table in a database
Converts that into a collection of objects (i am using nhibernate)
Convert that into either some DTO object (which is sitting in ViewModels folder) or a List of SelectListItem objects (to be used to populate dropdowns in the view) which is part of System.web.mvc.
I wanted to look for suggestions on the best way to break out this dependency so i can move as much code out of the MVC project as possible for reuse.
The issue is that if i try to suck my ViewModel code into the Model folder and into another project then again i get stuck because the ViewModel classes have a lot of dependency on
System.Web.Mvc
due to things like SelectListItem.
Should i have 2 view models folders (one in the MVC project that has specific system.web.mvc references and another one that sits in a different project?). It seems like the dependency on SelectListItem is what keeps causing the contention
In most examples that i have seen ViewModels do have a dependency on System.Web.Mvc such as this tutorial
I have seen these questions:
Asp.Net MVC SelectList Refactoring Question?
Where should selectlist logic sit in ASP.NET MVC, view, model or controller?
which are sort of related but not sure they answer my specific overall refactoring question stated.

View models are specific to the particular application. I guess that the view models would differ between your web application and your console application. So have each application define its own view models and the corresponding mapping between the domain models and the view models. Don't have your domain models posses methods that convert them to view models because this way you are completely tying your domain layer to the UI layer which is the worst thing to happen. Use a mapping layer (which will be specific to each application type). AutoMapper is a great example of a mapping layer that you could have.
Don't even try to reuse ASP.NET MVC view models in a console application. As you have already found out they will contain references to System.Web.Mvc because for example a dropDownList in ASP.NET MVC is represented with the IEnumerable<SelectListItem> class whereas in a Console Application, god knows, maybe an IEnumerable<SomeItemViewModel>.
Conclusion: View models and mapping back and forth between the domain and view models belong to the UI layer (a.k.a ASP.NET MVC, Console, WPF, ...).

I understand what you want to achieve, and I must tell you: it's absolutely normal to reuse the same ViewModels for different UI layers. After all, VM is part of MVVM pattern, and that pattern is all about separating concerns. And, separation means the ability to replace lower-level layers with another implementations. That is the purpose of separate software layers (among others).
For the beginning, you must assume that your MVC web project is MVVM-based. That will mentally help you make correct decisions. I guess you already did this since you use ViewModel term.
Make ViewModels become platform independent. It's possible, and it has nothing to do with SelectListItem. After all, SelectListItem simply contains the option text/value pair, plus the flag whether it's selected or not. You obviously can express the same information in a different way. After passing this Generic kind of ViewModel to the MVC, you can convert the generic "SelectListItem" to the MVC SelectListItem. Yes, it is sort of mapping, and it does not matter whether it takes place in the MVC view or before passing it to the View. But it must happen on the UI layer (MVC web project), since it's a platform specific mapping concern.
You mentioned data access code: that's a separate software layer, usually abstractly injected into the ViewModels. I foresee no problems with this part.
Hence, you will end up having different software layers (most likely in different .NET libraries): Data Access Layer, ViewModel layer, MVC Web layer.
There is a possibility of having MVC ViewModels as well (one passed from Controller to View) defined in the MVC project, but those will be simply handling (probably accepting) the generic ViewModels and exposing things in the MVC View-specific terms (mapping, inheritance, your imagination?). And this is normal too - after all, MVC is a web-based UI and it definitely has platform-specific differences that must be handled on the platform level, not before. MVC specific ViewModel would be a good place to handle the mapping from generic to MVC SelectListItem.
Once this refactoring is done, there's nothing stopping you from implementing another UI layer - Console application that you are mentioning, by utilizing the same generic ViewModels as the other UI layer - MVC Web project. When using the generic ViewModels in the console application, if you face the Console platform-specific issues, you can come up with the platform-specific ViewModels in the same way as I explained above for the MVC-specific ViewModels.

You can create viewmodels in controller with extension methods:
Controller:
public ActionResult ApplicationDetail(int id)
{
var model = _serviceLayer.GetSomeModel(id);
var viewModel = model.CreateInstance(model);
return View(viewModel);
}
Create this SomeModelExtensions in your mvc project
public class SomeModelExtensions {
public AppDetailViewModel CreateInstance(this SomeModel model) {
var viewModel = new AppDetailViewModel();
// here you create viewmodel object from model with logic
return viewModel;
}
}

In general I use the following setup/architecture when laying out an MVC app where I may need to reuse the models:
MVC Project: everything web related. I define ViewModels here and map them to the domain models.
Models Project: class library with all your domain logic.
Repository project: This is a class library which access the DB and the Domain Models.
The way it works is that the MVC project will use the (hopefully injected) Repository library to get the Domain Model and map it to its own ViewModel.
If you want to separate the mapping as well, you can put the Mapping Layer, as others have suggested (using AutoMapper eventually), in a separate project. The mapping layer will reference the repositories (and the domain models), while the MVC app will only reference the Mapping layer.
The problem is that the mapping layer, in creating ViewModels, will need a reference to System.Web.Mvc as you found out and you cannot escape this. This is why others have said, and I agree, that you should have a mapping layer per project.
A nice way to get around this is to have a further generic mapping layer with mapping classes defined for the common cases (like the email). Then in the specific child classes you can define the mapping for specific cases (like the ones depending on System.Web.Mvc).
So the end stack would be something like the following, dependencies going down. Of course everything should be interface based.
MVC App Console App
| |
| |
MVC Specific Mapper Console Specific Mapper
\ /
\ /
\ /
GenericMapper <- EmailMapper and EmailViewModel can be implemented here
| |
| |
Repository |
| |
| |
DomainModels
The above is not struggle free and probably the effort of splitting the mapping apart is not worth the candle if there are only one or two common cases. That way, from the Generic Mapper down you are free from the System.Web.Mvc library, while above you are free to forget about DB access code (In a sense the Mapper will act as a Repository for the App).

I assume the MVC web will use the same data as the console app + extra fields, right?
so, what about inheritance your ViewModel from Model? That way you would be able to reuse the model and get custom fields on your ViewModel as needed.
public class AppDetailModel
{
public int ID { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
}
public class AppDetailViewModel : AppDetailModel
{
public string ViewProperty { get; set; }
}

Should I inject services into my MVC views?

We're working on some kind of Cloud CMS using ASP.NET MVC technology, and have found some obstacles on the way. There is a number of parameters user could change thru the control panel that we need to end up in Views. For example, Facebook application id to initialize the Facebook JS API. Or additional text to be shown on the page. Or background picture. For now we're not using DI to transfer this parameters, instead we're adding them to the ViewModel, but this ruin the ASP.NET MVC way of working with models (e.g. form validation, bindings etc.)
It looks like that using DI to inject services for providing parameters, texts and pictures could make my views less dependent on controllers specific, and there is even some Microsoft technique to do it http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/hands-on-labs/aspnet-mvc-4-dependency-injection#Exercise2. However, there are a lot of answers on forums against injecting services into Views using DI.
So the question: what is a right way to inject some services into Views? Or I shouldn't do it at all and something is wrong in the application design?
UPDATE: some real code examples (now we're using Model to inject the services)
Injecting texts from database (they have to be user-editable, as it is CMS):
<div class="steps">#Html.Raw(Model.Texts["Main", "Step2"]</div>
Injecting translations from database (actually, it is localization):
<div class="gonfalon">#Model.Translations["Title_Winners"]</div>
Injecting parameters (from database, could be request-specific; for example, if the site has different domains, facebook application should be per-domain):
Facebook.Initialize(Model.Parameters["FbApplicationId"], Model.Parameters["FbApplicationSecret"]);
The problem of current approach is that this code has taken from contest mechanic. It is definitely out of contest business scope to deal with custom texts, translations or facebook application Id. Also it ruins the Model as model models not actual business domain but deals with a lot of things actually belongs to View (like translations and custom texts)
UPDATE 2: Have modified the snippet from the answer below to be a bit more generic:
public static class WebViewPageExtensions
{
public static I ResolveService<I>(this WebViewPage page)
{
return DependencyResolver.Current.GetService<I>();
}
}

No, you shouldn't inject services into Views, but...
For scenarios such as theming where you want to give the theme developer more power, just one model isn't enough. If your model contains the current post for example, how can a theme designer asks for a list of categories for the sidebar? Or for a widget?
In asp.net mvc you can use extension methods to offer that functionality.THe extension method will use the dependency resolver to get the service. This way, you can have the needed functionality in the view without actually injecting a service.
Note that calling the business layer to update the model is still a violation of Separation of Concerns. THe services made available to the view should contain only read model or general utility functionality.
An example
public static IMyViewServices MyServices(this WebViewPage view)
{
return DependencyResolver.Current.GetService<IMyViewServices>();
}
IMyViewServices lifetime configured in the DI Container should be per http (scope) request

No, end of story. Why? Here is why:
Your view only needs to know what the view model it's going to be working with to present that model. There are couple of reasons for this but the biggest one is the separation of concerns. Keep your view as stupid as possible. You will see that this seperation will give you a clean application structure throughout the way.
There is a number of parameters user could change through the control panel that we need to end up in Views.
I'm not sure what you exactly mean here but this is why there are view models. Your business layer will shape models up, your controller will simply map them to your view models and pass them into the view (presentation layer).

This really depends on how much or little you want your controllers to do and to what degree of separation you want to achieve.
In my world, the "controller" in an MVC app does as little as possible because I have a service layer handling all of the business logic and a data layer above that handling all of the database interaction.
On a GET, the controller will simply call a service method that will build the view model and hands it back to the controller and the controller passes it on to the view. On POST, the view posts data to the controller which sends it off to the service layer for validation, saving to DB, etc. The service is injected into the controller's constructor.
I'd be more than happy to post code examples if you'd like to see them.

Should I reuse view models in different views?

I noticed that I have views that need the same information like others. But sometimes you need 5 properties of the view model and sometimes only 2.
Do you share such view model over many views or do you create a separate view model for each view or maybe do you prefere an inheritance or composition strategy?
For me there are some disadvantages for sharing view models:
Principle of Least Surprise: It is strange to fill only 2 properties of 5 of a view model and get null reference exception, because you don't want to query additional data of the database. When the view model has 5 properties I expect that all are filled. The exceptions prove the rule.
Separation of Concerns/Single Responsibility Principle: The view model cluttered up on complex sites, because you have to suit different needs for each view. If logic is involved its getting more complex, too.
What do you think? How do you handle such circumstances?

People tend to have different philosophies of ViewModels based on their perspective of their use. ViewModels are the glue between a view and a model and people will typically base their answer on which of the two ends they like to hold more rigid.
If you like your model/data objects to be more rigid, then you'll tend to tie the ViewModel closer to the model/data—i.e. you'll have a single ViewModel that is used in multiple views and let the ViewModel determine which properties to retrieve based on how you want to handle data loading (and defer things like images or other long-load properties, etc.).
If you like your Views to be more rigid, then you'll tie the ViewModel closer to the View—i.e. have a separate ViewModel for each view and let the model/data objects handle things like syncronization as you move from view to view.
Personally, I prefer the first as my data tends to be more rigid because it's less likely to change than the views are (in my projects—I don't think that's a universal property of data and views). Since change notifications are a natural feature of ViewModels, I don't have to make my model objects communicate changes if a user happens to have two views up that show the same/similar data.

In the project I am working on, each view has its own ViewModel, however we also have CollectionViewModels, which are shared/referenced by multiple view models.
Think - a list of Suppliers, that needs to be displayed in multiple screens in your application - and is bound to a variety of controls - a list box, grid view, whatever you need. Having just one ViewModel makes for simpler update/refresh logic of the list of Suppliers.
TLDR: I would only reuse view models, if all usage cases use the ViewModel in the same way. I.e. they all use the same properties etc.

I would have a seperate ViewModel for each view. Unused properties make the code less readable (Why is that property present if it isn't being used?). If you have the same functionality for a fixed set of properties over several views I could see using a base class which contains those properties.

Definitely one ViewModel per View, imho.
As your application grows in complexity shared ViewModels will tend to grow, and it doesn't feel great to pass an object with 50 properties to a View when all it needs is one property.
Also, sometimes you may want to add extra properties in your ViewModel that are absolutely specific to your View and that you don't need in other Views. Say you have a CSS class that depends on properties from the ViewModel. Instead of writing if else statements in your View, you create a property in the ViewModel that returns the correct css class based on whatever business rules you have. This way you make the View as slim as possible and with a dedicated ViewModel you are not sharing a CSS class name with Views that don't really care about it.

I usually share ViewModels. As I understand it, the advantages of using view models are (a) security, in that properties that should be hidden are and (b) separation of concerns between business and presentation layers. (b) is accomplished just the same while sharing view models.
As for (a), I'm rarely in a situation where exposing a property is a security risk in one place but not in another. If a property needs to be hidden, it probably needs to be hidden everywhere. Of course, YMMV, but this seems like a fairly subjective question.

I use Entity Framework with Code First so my domain classes need to remain pretty rigid as they will be mapped to a sql database.
Some views use just one directly mapped entity and that's just great so I use the same domain layer entity. If that entity requires more information (two password fields for example) I will use composition. 'Composition should be favoured over inheritance', so if you can use composition do so, usually as it's just additional properties, composition can be used.
If there is a screen that uses only two properties of that entity, or I want to hide properties due to security concerns, I create a new view model and only retrieve the necessary data. I will reuse view models but only if the same properties are required in that other view.

I would share a VM between multiple view only if all properties variables and methods are used by all the views otherwise I would use inheritance and abstract base view model and if this does not solve. Do 1 to 1

TLDR: Yes (if you really want to use it and know how to use it wisely).
I can think of three responsibilities wanted from view model layer:
coupling view layer & model layer together
offering interface for unit testing
separating logic into small pieces when a single page is complex
The first responsibility actually conflicts with the second.
Because once a view model knows (couples with) the view class to initiate,
it cannot be unit tested.
Knowing the model (and its provider) class to initiate doesn't cause this problem.
However if the provider is a singleton, the unit test become less "unit".
When comes to the third responsibility, there is a kind of logic that I call them routing.
For example, after clicking on a button, the user should see the next page.
Which layer is this kind logic supposed to lie in?
View? Model? Definitely NOT!
It has no where to go but view model.
Once a view model knows the class of the view model of the next page to initiate,
it makes a giant view model tree to be dealt with.
Because this happen recursively – the next page also knows the next next page.
No matter on which node in this view model tree,
once a change happens,
it reflects on the parent nodes.
How to deal with these reflections?
Subclassing?
Remember, in the tree, a node can have hundreds of direct / indirect child nodes.
Conclusion – view model is good at the third responsibility only if it drops the first.
The only one it is really good at is the second responsibility.
However, I see nobody mentioning it under this question.

What is the best place for business logic in ASP.NET MVC when using repositories?

When implementing Repository for database in ASP.NET MVC project, is it correct to place business logic into it or may be better to place logic in controller class? Or use additional service and helper classes for manipulating data?

Ultimately there isn't a perfect place for your business logic besides its own layer (as part of the "Model" layer). Often you can get away with a different implementation, but there are trade offs in every case.
The trade off to creating another layer for the business logic is that you have to actually encapsulate your code. If you're too aggressive, you might also get some duplication between your entities and your domain model (if your DB's relational semantics already take care of your buiness logic).
View
The view is the most brittle part of your app, as it is the most likely part to change.
It is also very hard to get business logic correct in your view, due to having to support all the various view state transitions.
It is extremely well known these days that you just don't do this :)
Repository
The issue here is one of maintenance and purity of abstraction. Violating this can confuse people and make your app hard to maintain.
From the P of EAA article on the Repository pattern:
A Repository mediates between the domain and data mapping layers, acting like an in-memory domain object collection
A repository is an abstraction that presents your data storage as a collection that holds domain objects.
No domain logic should reside in it. Instead, it should exist in your domain objects (by definition, as your business logic is your domain).
To do otherwise (to make your repository do double duty and also validate domain logic) would be a violation of SRP (Single Responsibility Principle), and would be a code smell.
You can have higher level domain objects that work with collections of domain objects to validate domain logic (such as dependencies within a collection of objects, size limits, etc). They will still use your repositories under the covers to do final storage/retrieval of domain objects, so they won't be doing double duty (so won't violate SRP).
Controller
The controller is also not a good place to put business logic. The controller's job is to mediate between the controller and the model.
The model is the domain, and the domain is your business logic.
Entities
You might consider putting domain data in entities.
But you must be careful when accessing navigation properties if the entities are attached, as you can trigger inadvertent DB queries or exceptions (depending on if your context is disposed or not). Detaching them is also a problem, as it destroys your object graph unless you explicitly reattach the objects to each other after detaching them from the context.
If you make separate domain model classes, you might consider treating entities as DTOs only.
Edit: IValidatableObject
I found out just now about a feature in Entity Framework 4.1 that you may want to check out: the IValidatableObject interface.
You can make your entities partial classes, and in the partial class, implement this interface. When you do, the Entity Framework will call Validate on save, and you can call Validate whenever it makes sense for you to do so.
This might help you avoid splitting your persistence model from your domain model in additional cases.
See this article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/gg193959
Side note: Views/View Models
In case you are thinking about it, I suggest you avoid the temptation to pass entities back to the view. It will break in a lot of cases (e.g. Javascript serialization to store view state), and cause unintentional DB queries in other cases. Pass back simple types instead (strings, ints, lists, hashsets, dictionaries, etc), or construct view model classes to pass to the view.

Add a Service Layer to pass models to Repository, where Service classes corresponding to the controller can be added. For example if you use a UserController and User Model, You can pass the User Model to UserService class.
Here the Service Layer can act as a bridge between the Repository and the controller so that the separation of Controller and Repository is well established.

Business logic should be there in your Domain model.
Please look into this answer.
ASP.NET MVC - Should business logic exist in controllers?

I agree with the above, controllers should not be responsible for business logic simply for returning the appropriate views. I use a service layer to provide business logic and view model creation so that a controller simply passes the model returned from a service to a view.
I also ensure my view models are simple DTOs, and the service simply knows how to populate the properties appropriately.

In my opinion it depends on the business logic. Is the logic based on validation of input and input rules, if so it may be best to be on the model. However, if it is business rules based on workflow then that may need to be in a controller, such as, user chooses option A then gets redirected to a different page/form than if option B was selected. If the business rules have to deal with data persistence then it may need to go in the repository (It would seem strange to put it there to me). There's a ton of discussion about this, but it comes down to you or your team's perspective about how maintainable and flexible the end product will be based on the implementation.