this page aim to recense every feature that can be used in AspView templates, it's a work in progress.

the page directive

it's purpose is to define the base class of the view declaring it. It's also there to enable intellisense.

unique non mandatory (will default to the one defined in the sample syntax)

sample syntax

<%page language="c#" inherits="Castle.MonoRail.Views.AspView.ViewAtDesignTime"%>

note that the inherits directive's attribute has special behavior, please refer to this blog entry http://www.kenegozi.com/Blog/2007/12/13/new-stuff-in-aspview.aspx for now

It's possible to use genericized base view page such as

<%page language="c#" inherits="Castle.MonoRail.Views.AspView.ViewAtDesignTime<IStronglyTypedPropertiesWrapper>"%>

then StronglyTypedPropertiesWrapper instance is accessible with the view property such as:

<%=view.MyProperty%>

you don't have to provide an instance of IStronglyTypedPropertiesWrapper (or ever implement one), it is automagically created using [DictionaryAdapter] which will wrap the PropertyBag and map matching properties which you declared on your StronglyTypedPropertiesWrapper type

the import directive

it's purpose is to import namespace, avoiding the use of fully qualified type names. It's also there to enable intellisense.

non mandatory multiple can be defined

sample syntax

<%import namespace="Namespace.To.Import"%>

view properties declaration

unique non mandatory (you can use the parametized Generic 'view' Property) must follow page or import directive

sample syntax

<aspView:properties><%
  PropertyType propertyName;
%></aspView:properties>

or

<script runat="server" type="aspview/properties">
  PropertyType propertyName;
</script>

important notes

when used, property names are mapped to the elements defined in the PropertyBag, it's actually done in a case insensitive manner you can initialize default value for defined properties (if not set in the PropertyBag) with the c# initialization you can't use c# 3 'var' declaration when initializing the property one property per line

dynamic value output

sample syntax

raw output

<%=propertyName%>

html encoded output

<%#propertyName%>
or
<%=(propertyName)%>
or
${propertyName}

view components

are used in the body of the template

sample syntax

simpliest

<component:viewcomponentname>
</component:viewcomponentname>

view component name is case insensitive you can't use self closing tag it don't have to span multiple lines

passing string literal to view component's properties

simply use the natural html/xml way to do it

<component:viewcomponentname propertyname="literal property value">
</component:viewcomponentname>

property names are case insensitive

passing values to view component's properties

<component:viewcomponentname propertyname="<%=something.Wise">">
</component:viewcomponentname>

using view component body

<component:viewcomponentname>
body contents
</component:viewcomponentname>

using view component sections

<component:viewcomponentname propertyname="<%=something.Wise">">
<section:sectionname>section contents</section:sectionname>
</component:viewcomponentname>

section name is case sensitive

embeded script

used to embed short helper methods that are view specific

sample syntax

<script runat="server">
string DoubleIt(string toBeDoubled){ return String.Format("{0}{0}",toBeDoubled); }
</script>
<%=DoubleIt("me")%>

don't embed complex logic in such scripts (logic in view is evil, you can't unit test it) it may work with view extension methods (not tested yet)