The ASPX View Engine has long been the standard for rendering views in ASP.NET MVC, a feature that was introduced in the early days of the framework. While it served its purpose, it came with some limitations in flexibility and simplicity. Enter the Razor View Engine, which is now the default for ASP.NET Core MVC. Razor is more streamlined, easier to use, and integrates seamlessly with the modern features of ASP.NET Core. It uses a more concise syntax that allows for dynamic content generation within HTML, making it a popular choice for developers seeking an efficient way to build web applications.
If you’re looking to get hands-on with Razor View Engine in an ASP.NET Core MVC project, you’ll need Visual Studio 2019 installed on your machine. Visual Studio offers powerful tools for building and managing .NET applications, making it an ideal choice for .NET developers. If you don’t have Visual Studio 2019 installed yet, you can easily download it from Microsoft’s official site and get started with the installation process.
To begin working with Razor in your ASP.NET Core MVC project, you’ll first need to create a new project in Visual Studio. This process is straightforward. Start by opening Visual Studio and selecting the option to “Create new project.” Then, from the available templates, choose “ASP.NET Core Web App (Model-View-Controller).” Click “Next” to proceed, and in the configuration window, you can specify your project’s name and location.
Once you’ve configured your project, it’s time to select the target framework. For this guide, select .NET 5.0 from the dropdown list in the “Additional Information” window. You can leave the authentication type as “None” unless your application requires authentication. Ensure that features like Docker, HTTPS configuration, and Razor runtime compilation are unchecked since we will not need them for the purposes of this guide. After clicking “Create,” Visual Studio will set up a new ASP.NET Core MVC project, ready for you to start working with Razor views and other essential web application features.