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How to add View routing in a .net core project?

I have created a .Net Core Web API program. I want to add a single view to it. Under the same project I add a "Views" folder. In the HomeController, where I am routing all my API requests, I created the following:
[HttpGet("view")]
public IActionResult Index()
{
return View();
}
In my Views folder I created a folder "Home" and added "Index.cshtml" to it.
When I launch the API, and navigate to "../view" I get to the return View(); line, but then it returns a 500 Internal Server Error.
This is what I don't like about the "automagical" approach of MVC convention. I have no idea where to link a view to a controller if the convention didn't work.
Update, this probably should have been my first course of action.
I added a new class to Controllers folder, and used the MVC Controller template in VS2015. I then added a view to match, and it still doesn't work automagically.
So for clarity, my project is: ASP.NET Core Web Application(.NET Core) with a Web API template. I have a "Jobs" controller class that was added at the start as 'Values' and I renamed. Then I added an MVC Controller Class named "HomeController" with the only method being "Index". I added a folder named "Views" and a subfolder named "Home", and added an MVC View Page named "Index.cshtml".
I tried to use "return View();" in the Index method, didn't work. I then tried to add [Route("Home/Index")] above the Index method. Either way, the URL will get me to my break point at "return View();" but it will never return the view.

Note : It's a little strange that you want to return a view in a Web API project, a Web API project is supposed to return some data structure, like json using return new JsonResult(your_json_here) for example.
Note 2 : you need the Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc framework (which is installed with the Web API template)
Anyway, you have different ways to configure routing in a asp.net core application :
Creating and extending default routes
Example of routing configuration in the Configure method :
app.UseMvc(routes =>
{
// You can add all the routes you need here
// And the default route :
routes.MapRoute(
name: "default_route",
template: "{controller}/{action}/{id?}",
defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index" }
);
});
Using attributes
If you configure routing with attributes, don't forget the controller's one :
Example for the route /index :
[Route("")]
public class HomeController : Controller
{
[HttpGet]
[Route("[action]")]
public IActionResult Index()
{
return View();
}
}
Example for the route /home/index :
[Route("[controller]")]
public class HomeController : Controller
{
[HttpGet]
[Route("[action]")]
public IActionResult Index()
{
return View();
}
}
Example for the route /iputwhatiwant/actionnameiwant :
[Route("iputwhatiwant")]
public class HomeController : Controller
{
[HttpGet]
[Route("actionnameiwant")]
public IActionResult Index()
{
return View();
}
}
My screen of a .NET Core Web API project returning a view :
For more information, the official documentation is well-documented : https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/fundamentals/routing

How are you running this webapp, from the Windows commandline?... can you give us the detailed HTTP500 error. It will probably reveal something different than routing errors because that usually gives 404.
[Route("[controller]")]
public class HomeController : Controller
Note the automagical "[controller]" in the Route definition, I think its necessary now

It took me a frustratingly long while to learn the routing convention as it was being developed, but it seems to have normalized out for a few versions. Check out this tutorial documentation on the subject in MVC: Attribute Routing in ASP.NET MVC 5, which is MVC not WebCoreAPI where it is likely based from. If you have a better documentation specific to Web Core API, use that.
This ASP.NET Web Core Build a web API tutorial documentation has some good points about what you seem to be trying to do. Specifically, the section title "Getting to-do items" has this code:
[HttpGet("{id}", Name = "GetTodo")]
public IActionResult GetById(long id)
{
var item = _todoRepository.Find(id);
if (item == null)
{
return NotFound();
}
return new ObjectResult(item);
}
Looking at that with benefit of some measure of MVC routing experience, it looks particularly different from your approach in that the HTTP verb annotation member property value used is a query parameter.
Seeing I am guessing using known inexpertise, still, I think you need to get the attribute routing fixed, and maybe return an ObjectResult instead of a view, as NightOwl888 suggests. The server error might also have much more useful information along with the exception message.
EDIT: Sorry, I may have misunderstood your question. If you are trying to build an app that serves dynamic web pages instead of a WebAPI that serves data object results, this Build an MVC Web App tutorial, similar to the "Build a web API" tutorial I mentioned before might have your app structure problem answer. If you are trying to do both, you should probably start with the MVC Web App structure or use two separate projects.

The (only) way I have got this working is to declare the path as an attribute on the action - in the same way you have done but with the format as below (Controller/Action):
[HttpGet("Home/Index")]
public IActionResult Index()
{
return View();
}

I was missing:
"preserveCompilationContext": true
in the build options of my project.json

Proper way to route to controllers in Umbraco ASP.NET / IApplicationEventHander vs ApplicationEventHandler vs RouteConfig.cs, RenderMvcController etc

I have a Solution structure like this:
MyApp.Core
--Properties
--References
--bin
--Events
|EventHandlers.cs
--Directory
--Controllers
|DirectoryController.cs
--Helpers
|ContextHelpers.cs
--Models
|DirectoryModel.cs
--AnotherSite
--Controllers
--Helpers
--Models
--Services
--Shared
--Controllers
|HomePageController.cs
--Helpers
|Extensions.cs
|app.config
|packages.config
MyApp.Umbraco
--Properties
--References
--bin
etc........
--Views
--Directory
--Partials
|DirectoryFilters.cshtml
|DirectoryBase.cshtml
|DirectoryHome.cshtml
|FDirectory.cshtml
|SDirectory.cshtml
--Partials
--Shared
|Base.cshtml
|Web.config
etc........
My Umbraco instance uses the models and controllers from my "Core" project. There is nested directory structure, because of multiple websites in one installation, in the "Core", and also in the "Views" directory in the Umbraco instance.
I am still fairly noob to .NET MVC, and I understand route hijacking, but the documentation for Umbraco's routing is slim. I have the following:
EventHandlers.cs
namespace MyApp.Core.Events
{
/// <summary>
/// Registers site specific Umbraco application event handlers
/// </summary>
public class MyAppStartupHandler : IApplicationEventHandler
{
public void OnApplicationInitialized(UmbracoApplicationBase umbracoApplication, ApplicationContext applicationContext)
{
}
public void OnApplicationStarted(UmbracoApplicationBase umbracoApplication, ApplicationContext applicationContext)
{
RegisterCustomRoutes();
}
public void OnApplicationStarting(UmbracoApplicationBase umbracoApplication, ApplicationContext applicationContext)
{
}
private static void RegisterCustomRoutes()
{
// Custom Routes
RouteTable.Routes.MapUmbracoRoute(
"FDirectory",
"fdirectory/{id}",
new
{
controller = "Directory",
action = "FDirectory",
id = UrlParameter.Optional
},
new PublishedPageRouteHandler(1000));
RouteTable.Routes.MapUmbracoRoute(
"SDirectory",
"sdirectory/{id}",
new
{
controller = "Directory",
action = "SDirectory",
id = UrlParameter.Optional
},
new PublishedPageRouteHandler(1001));
RouteTable.Routes.MapUmbracoRoute(
"HomePage",
"",
new
{
controller = "HomePage",
action = "Index",
id = UrlParameter.Optional
},
new PublishedPageRouteHandler(1002));
}
}
public class PublishedPageRouteHandler : UmbracoVirtualNodeRouteHandler
{
private readonly int _pageId;
public PublishedPageRouteHandler(int pageId)
{
_pageId = pageId;
}
protected override IPublishedContent FindContent(RequestContext requestContext, UmbracoContext umbracoContext)
{
if (umbracoContext != null)
{
umbracoContext = ContextHelpers.EnsureUmbracoContext();
}
var helper = new UmbracoHelper(UmbracoContext.Current);
return helper.TypedContent(_pageId);
}
}
}
DirectoryController.cs
namespace MyApp.Core.Directory.Controllers
{
public class DirectoryController : RenderMvcController
{
public DirectoryController() : this(UmbracoContext.Current) { }
public DirectoryController(UmbracoContext umbracoContext) : base(umbracoContext) { }
public ActionResult FDirectory(RenderModel model)
{
return CurrentTemplate(new DirectoryModel(model.Content));
}
public ActionResult SDirectory(RenderModel model)
{
return CurrentTemplate(new DirectoryModel(model.Content));
}
}
}
So Umbraco does not install with an App_Start folder. I would like to know what the best approach is for a multi-site installation of Umbraco for registering the routes to the controllers. My implementation works, but it seems like I shouldn't have to create actions for every single page I am going to have in a site, in every controller. I know Umbraco has its own routing, so using Umbraco concepts, ASP.NET MVC concepts, and whatever else is available, what is the best way to implement this type of solution structure? Should I even worry about using a RouteConfig.cs and create a App_Start directory? Or is what I am doing the best approach? Should I use IApplicationEventHandler or ApplicationEventHandler?
Also, I have to hard code the node ID's. I've read that there is a way to Dynamically? And example of this would be great.
Examples of the best way to implement a structured multi-site Umbraco MVC solution is what I am asking for I guess, in regards to routing the controllers, with some detail, or links to strong examples. I have searched and researched, and there are bits and pieces out there, but not really a good example like what I am working with. I am going to have to create a RouteMap for every single page I create at this point, and I don't know if this is the most efficient way of doing this. I even tried implementing a DefaultController, but didn't see the point of that when your solution is going to have multiple controllers.

I'm not entirely sure what you are trying to achieve with this, but I'll try to explain how it works and maybe you can clarify afterwards.
I assume you have the basics of Umbraco figured out (creating document types + documents based on the document types). This is how Umbraco is normally used and it will automatically do routing for you for each of these "content nodes" (documents) you create in a site.
So create a document named document1 and it will be automatically routed in your site at URL: http://localhost/document1. By default this document will be served through a default MVC controller and it will all take place behind the scenes without you having to do anything.
Route hijacking allows you to override this default behavior and "shove in" a controller that lets you interfere with how the request is handled. To use hijacking you create a RenderMvcController with the alias of your document type. That could be HomePageController : RenderMvcController.
This controller should have an action with the following signature:
public override ActionResult Index(RenderModel model)
In this action you are able to modify the model being sent to the view in any way you like. That could be - getting some external data to add on to the model or triggering some logic or whatever you need to do.
This is all automatically hooked up by naming convention and you will not have to register any routes manually for this to work.
The other type of Umbraco MVC controller you can create is a SurfaceController. This one is usually used for handling rendering of child actions and form submissions (HttpPost). The SurfaceController is also automatically routed by Umbraco and will be located on a "not so pretty" URL. However since it is usually really not used for anything but rendering child actions and taking form submits, it doesn't really matter what URL it is located at.
Besides these auto-routed controllers you are of course able to register your own MVC controllers like in any standard MVC website. The one difference though is that unlike a normal ASP.NET MVC website, an Umbraco site does not have the automagical default registration of controllers allowing the routing to "just work" when creating a new controller.
So if you want to have a plain old MVC controller render in an Umbraco site without it being related to a document/node in Umbraco, you would have to register a route for it like you would do in any other MVC site. The best way of doing that is to hook in and add it to the Routes using an ApplicationEventHandler class. That will automatically be triggered during application startup - essentially allowing you to do what you would normally do in App_Start.
Just to be clear though - if you plan on using data from Umbraco, you should not be using normal MVC controllers and should not require any manual route registration to be done. You usually want to render a template/view in context of a document/node created in Umbraco (where you can modify data/properties of the document) and then the route hijacking is the way to go.
From what it looks like, it could seem that the correct way to do what you are trying to do is to simply create two document types:
FDirectory and SDirectory
You click to allow both of these to be created in root and then you create documents called FDirectory and SDirectory and they will be automatically routed on these URLs. Creating a RenderMvcController's called FDirectoryController : RenderMvcController will then make sure it is used to hijack the routing whenever that page is requested.
If you're simply trying to set up a multi-site solution I would suggest you create a Website document type and create a node for each site you want, in the root of your Umbraco content tree. Right click each of these nodes and edit the hostname to be whatever you need it to be. This can also be some "child url" like /fdirectory or /sdirectory in case you need to test this on localhost without using multiple hostnames.
Hope this gives you the pointers needed, otherwise try to explain what you are trying to do and I'll see if I can refine my answer a bit!

ASP MVC Route Default Configuration

I'm new to ASP MVC programming and wanna ask about how the route is configured.
For example I have the Home Controller
public ActionResult Home(){
return View("Index")
}
This will find the Index.cshtml under /Views/Home/
However if I rename the Home Folder to Homees for example, the view is not found and also I try to return View with View("~/Views/Homees/Index.cshtml") this is not change that the controller not found the view.
Is this the default of the asp mvc? and it's possible to change this one?

There are few points.
ASP.net MVC is convention based. It is also specified by #Petar Minev. When it comes to search for view it use following method. It take controller name as directory name and view name file name with different extention ( like cshtml, vbhtml , aspx ) based on view engine. ( As you are using cshtml it seems that you are using both Razor and Webform view engine).
For search it will first go to directory with controller name and search for specified view. If it is not available there then it goes to shared folder.
Above is default behavior of ASP.net MVC.
Now you change folder name then first solution you have tried that must work as it works for me. ( Please check that your folder name is correct. Make sure you did not rename for area directory).
public ActionResult Home(){
return View("~/Views/Homees/Index.cshtml")
}
Another solution is to rename controller with HomeesController ( So it will automatically locate correct directory)
If you continue with this convention for other folder like the way you add "es" in "Home" it is better to add this convention in default search for view.
( You can do this by either inherit from default RazorViewEngine or change RazorViewEngine parameter)
For example
protected void Application_Start()
{
RazorViewEngine engine = (RazorViewEngine)ViewEngines.Engines[1];
List<string> currentFormats = engine.ViewLocationFormats.ToList();
currentFormats.Insert(0,"~/Views/{1}es/{0}.cshtml");
engine.ViewLocationFormats = currentFormats.ToArray();
... Other application start code
}

Razor View engine is default view engine for ASP.Net MVC. This Razor view engine is configured to locate path at specified path i.e. "~/Views/{1}/{0}.cshtml".
Here {1} placeholder specifies controller name and {0} represents view name.
Say, for Example any request for Index action in Home controller will look for view at "~/Views/Home/Index.cshtml".
Now if you want to change this default path then you have to define custom view engine. Here a sample example how can you define a custom view engine and change the default path.
public class MyCustomViewEngine : RazorViewEngine
{
public MyCustomViewEngine()
{
ViewLocationFormats = new string[] {
"~/MyViews/{1}/{0}.cshtml",
"~/MyViews/Shared/{0}.cshtml" };
MasterLocationFormats = new string[] {
"~/MyViews/{1}/{0}.cshtml",
"~/MyViews/Shared/{0}.cshtml"};
PartialViewLocationFormats = new string[] {
"~/MyViews/{1}/{0}.cshtml",
"~/MyViews/Shared/{0}.cshtml"};
FileExtensions = new string[] { "cshtml" };
}
}
You also need to register custom view engine with ASP.Net run time at Application _Start() event.
ViewEngines.Engines.Clear();
ViewEngines.Engines.Add(new MyCustomViewEngine());

Your controller code is seems wrong, if your controller name is Home then code will be like this with index action
public class HomeController : Controller
{
public ActionResult Index()
{
return View("~/Views/Homees/index.cshtml");
}
public ActionResult Contact()
{
return View();
}
}
you just used the controller name as action name, by default in view folder there is a separate folder for each controller like for Home controller there will be a folder named Home, and inside that there will be separate cshtml file for each action result, like for my code there is a two action result name Index and Contact so under Home folder there will be two separate cshtml for both as index.cshtml and contact.cshtml. So when we request index action it will go for index.cshtml and for Contact action contact.cshtml by default, but we can spacify our own view for any action like my index view, and it works fine, your approach was correct but only problem was the Controller name and action name I think, try this way it may help

by default Microsoft's ASP.NET MVC is created over one Folder Convention which means that all files that will be Controllers should be under Controller folder, each file which will be View should be under View folder,
also if you create Mvc Route for example MyProfile, in the MVC you'll get contorller with this name and folder under the view's.
All this is controlled by the default routing which is knowing where to find, Views and controllers, so if you want to make some changes or modifications you should go to ASP.NET web site and look some tutorials for MVC Routing
Hope i helped :)

Simple just go to App_Start and Open RouteConfig.cs File and change route controller "Home" to "Homees" by default it set as "Home". If you rename your HomeController to "HomeesController" you should change to rountconfig by default route. check below image
After that open "HomeesController" from Controller folder here you can add action for view
public ActionResult Index()
{
return View();
}
and Add Action to View "Homees" Folder

mvc5 attribute routing within area can't find view

When I'm inside Admin area and map my routes using attribute routing it cannot find view because it doesn't look inside actual area view folders but instead only global view folders.
Only if I pass full path to view it then can display it, otherwise it throws me error.
Error
The view 'Authorize' or its master was not found or no view engine supports the searched locations. The following locations were searched:
~/Views/Home/Authorize.aspx
~/Views/Home/Authorize.ascx
~/Views/Shared/Authorize.aspx
~/Views/Shared/Authorize.ascx
~/Views/Home/Authorize.cshtml
~/Views/Home/Authorize.vbhtml
~/Views/Shared/Authorize.cshtml
~/Views/Shared/Authorize.vbhtml
Code
[RoutePrefix("admin")]
public class HomeController : Controller
{
[Route]
public ActionResult Index()
{
return View("Authorize"); // Error
return View("~/Areas/Admin/Views/Home/Authorize.cshtml"); // Working
}
}
Note that if I disable attribute routing and switch back to good old routes it will work. Any way of fixing this or it's working as intended and I should apply full path in all my areas?

You need to add the [RouteArea("")] attribute to your controller:
[RouteArea("Admin")]
public class HomeController : Controller
You can find the documentation here.

Display View in folder without Controller or Action in ASP.net MVC

I would like to display the view in the folder if no controller/action matches.
For example www.site.com/Home/Index, if I have the normal default route {controller}/{action}/{id} then I need a HomeController with method Index.
And there is a folder in Views folder called Home and the file Index.cshtml
If i try www.site.com/About/Index i need to create the AboutController and the method index.
But I have just the folder About and file Index.cshtml.
I would like that if the default route does not match but I have a Folder and a File in the Views folder that match the patern: {controller} is the folder {action} is the view; then that view is displayed.
How could I achive that?

For missing actions you can override HandleUnknownAction.
For missing controllers you can implement a custom DefaultControllerFactory and override GetControllerInstance with something like this:
protected override IController GetControllerInstance(RequestContext requestContext, Type controllerType) {
if (controllerType == null)
return new DumbController();
return base.GetControllerInstance(requestContext, controllerType);
}
class DumbController : Controller {
protected override void HandleUnknownAction(string actionName) {
try {
View(actionName).ExecuteResult(this.ControllerContext);
} catch (Exception ex) {
throw new HttpException(404, "Not Found", ex);
}
}
}

I came across the same issue recently while developing AJAX web applications where most of the pages don't actually need a controller (all the data is returned via Web API calls).
It seemed inefficient to have dozens of controllers all with a single action returning the view so I developed the ControllerLess plugin which includes a default view controller behind the scenes with a single action.
If you create a controller for your view, then MVC will use that. However, if you create a view without a controller, the request is re-routed via the default plugin controller.
It works with C# and VB.NET and us available at https://www.nuget.org/packages/ControllerLess
The source code is also available on GitHub at https://github.com/brentj73/ControllerLess

You cannot and shouldn't the way you want. Views cannot be addressed by design (in the web.config in the /views folder theres an HttpNotFoundHandler mapped to * to ensure this)
With that said, what you want here is not really standard so why do you want to do this, maybe we can come up with a better suggestion based on the reason behind this?

Never tried this, but here's a thought. You can setup constraints for the routes, and thus you should be able to create a route matching "{folder}/{file}" where you constraint them to valid values (you can google this, or seach her on SO), and set it to run on a FileController (arbitrary name) with some default action. Then, in that action, simply return the desired view. Something like:
public class FileController : Controller {
public ActionResult Default(string folder, string file) {
return View(folder + "/" + file);
}
}