Using @section inside Razor Helper

Question

We are trying to setup Sections of our layout to be Required but configurable based on the individual page. At the moment we do this with a Section.

@section FloatingNav {
    <h1>@Model.Name <span class="release-year">@Model.AverageRating</span></h1>
    <ul class="sub-nav">
        <li class="active"><a href="#episodes">Episodes</a></li>
        <li><a href="#episodes">Cast</a></li>
        <li>Reviews</li>
        <li>Related</li>
    </ul>
}

This requires you to setup this block in every new page but i wanted to make this process easier with some defaults and options to configure using a partial view. I was hoping to setup a Razor helper such as this.

@using System.Web.Mvc.Html
@helper FloatingNav(string name, int rating) {
    @section FloatingNav {
        <h1>
            name <span class="release-year">rating</span></h1>
        <ul class="sub-nav">
            <li class="active"><a href="#episodes">Episodes</a></li>
            <li><a href="#episodes">Cast</a></li>
            <li>Reviews</li>
            <li>Related</li>
        </ul>
    }
}
@helper FloatingNav(System.Web.Mvc.HtmlHelper html, string viewName) {
    @section FloatingNav {
        @html.Partial(viewName)
    }
}
@helper FloatingNav(System.Web.Mvc.HtmlHelper html, string viewName, object model) {
    @section FloatingNav {
        @html.Partial(viewName, model)
    }
}

So the syntax to implement would be something like

@Layout.FloatingNav(@Model.Name, @Model.AverageRating)

or

@Layout.FloatingNav("_SimpleNav", @Model)

The issue though is that it seems the Razor Helpers do not understand the section syntax. Is there a way to include sections in Razor Helpers?

Answer 1

I don't think this is possible.

The @helper and @section syntax are special directives for compiling pages.

A HelperResult (a helper) doesn't know how to define a section.

The DefineSection method belongs to a WebPageBase.

You might have to come at this from a different direction. Using partial views instead of helpers would probably fix this problem.