Image equivalent of ActionLink in ASP.NET MVC

Jason_Whitehorn_27860 0
Viewed 45487

In ASP.NET MVC is there an equivalent of the Html.ActionLink helper for Img tags?

I have a controller action that outputs a dynamically generated JPEG and I wanted to use the same Lambda expressions to link to it as I do HREFs using ActionLink.

Alternatively, a helper that just gives the URL to a route (again specified using Lambdas) would also be acceptable.

EDIT: I had originally specified that I was using Preview 5, however I see that a Beta has been released. So all-in-all the version number was an unneeded piece of info as I may be upgrading soon :-)

routing asp.net-mvc
14 Answers

You can use the URL.Action method

<a href="<%= Url.Action("Create")  %>"><img src="../../Content/Images/add_48.png" /></a>
user_532360

This question is older, and I just started recently with ASP.NET MVC when the RC was already out, but for those who find this question later like me this might be interesting:

At least in the RC you can use Url.Action() also with anonymous types, the result looks much nicer than the suggestions above, I guess:

<a href="<%= Url.RouteUrl("MyRoute", new { param1 = "bla", param2 = 5 }) %>">
   put in <span>whatever</span> you want, also <img src="a.gif" alt="images" />.
</a>

There are many other overloads for RouteUrl as well, of course.

markus_605760

Url.Action() will get you the bare URL for most overloads of Html.ActionLink, but I think that the URL-from-lambda functionality is only available through Html.ActionLink so far. Hopefully they'll add a similar overload to Url.Action at some point.

stevemegson_250280

I used a workaround to place a marker instead of text for ActionLink and then replace it with my image code. Something like this:

<%= Html.ActionLink("__IMAGE_PLACEHOLDER__", "Products").Replace("__IMAGE_PLACEHOLDER__", "<img src=\"" + myImgUrl + "\" />")%>

Not the most elegant solution but it works.

user_195460

In ASP.NET MVC Beta, you can use the Html.BuildUrlFromExpression method in the Futures assembly (which is not included in the default ASP.NET MVC install, but is available from CodePlex) to create a link around an image--or any HTML--using the lambda-style ActionLink syntax, like this:

<a href="<%=Html.BuildUrlFromExpression<MyController>(c => c.MyAction())%>">
     <%=Html.Image("~/Content/MyImage.gif")%>
</a>

To keep your image links borderless, you'll need to add a CSS rule like this:

img
{
     border: none;
}
user_278670
Admin1

Is Url.Content() what you're looking for?

Give it something like Url.Content("~/path/to/something.jpg") it will turn it into the appropriate path based on the application root.

-Josh

Admin1

I tried to put the output of the Html.Image into my Html.ImageLink helper.

@(new HtmlString(Html.ActionLink(Html.Image("image.gif").ToString(), "myAction", "MyController").ToString().Replace("&lt;", "<").Replace("&gt;", ">")))

The problem for me is, that the ActionLink name is encoded so I have &lt instead of <.

I just removed this encoding and the result works for me. (Is there a better way of doing this instead using replace?)

user_2227610
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