How to set a Default Route (To an Area) in MVC

Question

Ok this has been asked before but there is no solid solution out there. So for purpose of myself and others who may find this useful.

In MVC2 (ASP.NET) I want it so when someone navigates to the website, there is a default area specified. So navigating to my site should send you to ControllerX ActionY in AreaZ.

Using the following route in the Global.asax

routes.MapRoute(
                "Area",
                "",
                new { area = "AreaZ", controller = "ControllerX ", action = "ActionY " }
            );

Now this works as in it does try to serve the correct page. However MVC proceeds to look for the View in the root of the site and not in the Area folder.

Is there a way to resolve this?

EDIT

There is a 'Solution' and that is in ControllerX, ActionY return the full path of the view. Bit of a hack but it does work. However I'm hoping there is a better solution.

         public ActionResult ActionY()
        {
            return View("~/Areas/AreaZ/views/ActionY.aspx");
        }

Edit:

This also becomes an issue when having a HTML ActionLink of the page. If the area is not set the Action Link is output blank.

Is all of this by design or a flaw?

Answer 1

This is how I did it. I don't know why MapRoute() doesn't allow you to set the area, but it does return the route object so you can continue to make any additional changes you would like. I use this because I have a modular MVC site that is sold to enterprise customers and they need to be able to drop dlls into the bin folder to add new modules. I allow them to change the "HomeArea" in the AppSettings config.

var route = routes.MapRoute(
                "Home_Default", 
                "", 
                new {controller = "Home", action = "index" },
                new[] { "IPC.Web.Core.Controllers" }
               );
route.DataTokens["area"] = area;

Edit: You can try this as well in your AreaRegistration.RegisterArea for the area you want the user going to by default. I haven't tested it but AreaRegistrationContext.MapRoute does sets route.DataTokens["area"] = this.AreaName; for you.

context.MapRoute(
                    "Home_Default", 
                    "", 
                    new {controller = "Home", action = "index" },
                    new[] { "IPC.Web.Core.Controllers" }
                   );