ASP.NET MVC Ajax.ActionLink with Image

Here's the easiest solution I've found:

<%= Ajax.ActionLink("[replacethis]", ...).Replace("[replacethis]", "<img src=\"/images/test.gif\" ... />" %>

The Replace() call is used to push the img tag into the action link. You just need to use the "[replaceme]" text (or any other safe text) as a temporary placeholder to create the link.

Another solution is to create your own extension method:

ActionLink<TController>(this HtmlHelper helper, Expression<Action<TController>> action, string linkText, object htmlAttributes, LinkOptions options)

and as the last parameter is the enumeration LinkOptions

[Flags]
public enum LinkOptions
{
    PlainContent = 0,
    EncodeContent = 1,
}

and then you can use it as follows:

Html.ActionLink<Car>(
     c => c.Delete(item.ID), "<span class=\"redC\">X</span>",
     new { Class = "none left" }, 
     LinkOptions.PlainContent)

I'll post whole description of this solution on my blog: http://fknet.wordpress.com/

The short answer is that is not possible. Your options are to write your own extension method to have an ImageActionLink, not too hard to do. Or add an attribute to the actionLink and replace the innerhtml with the image tag.

See version 7 the Contact Manager Tutorial on http://asp.net/mvc. Stephen Walther has an example of creating an Ajax.ActionLink that is an image.

Every answer is good but I found the easiest one:

@Html.ActionLink( " ", "Index", "Countries", null, new
{
        style = "background: url('../../Content/Images/icon.png') no-repeat center right;display:block; height:24px; width:24px;margin-top:-2px;text-decoration:none;"
} )

Note that it is using a white space (" ") for the link text. It will not work with an empty text.

The first solution is to use a helper static method DecodeLinkContent like the following:

DecodeLinkContent(Html.ActionLink<Home>(c => c.Delete(item.ID), "<span class=\"redC\">X</span>",new { Class = "none left"})) 

DecodeLinkContent has to find first '>' and last '<' and has to replace the content with HttpUtility.Decode(content).

This solution is little bit a hack but I think it's the most easy.

Others didn't work for me as the .ToHtmlString() spat out a string in MVC 4.

the below passes an id to the edit control and displays an edit image instead of the text spag:

@MvcHtmlString.Create(Ajax.ActionLink("Spag", "Edit", new { id = item.x0101EmployeeID }, new AjaxOptions() { UpdateTargetId = "selectDiv", InsertionMode = InsertionMode.Replace, HttpMethod = "GET" }).ToHtmlString().Replace("Spag", "<img src=\"" + Url.Content("../../Images/edit.png") + "\" />"))

I don't know, this seems easier to me:

    <a href="@Url.Action("index", "home")">
        <img src="~/Images/rocket.png" width="25" height="25" title="Launcher" />
    </a>