Can a controller view render into multiple zones?

[kevinsmgov]

I have a site with a complex theme and placement.json file. Different content types render their parts and fields into several different zones in the layout.

I am trying to create a controller to produce custom results based on URL query parameters and I need the results to behave like my existing content types and render with my existing razor templates, following the rules in my existing placement.json file.

To some extent, this works. The controller's resulting viewmodel contains a number of different shapes that present themselves as known parts and fields and those parts and fields render with their expected razor templates. However, it seems like the placement.json file is ignored in the case of the controller's results and everything renders within the Content zone.

It may be that there are additional properties I need to set with the shapefactory in the controller relative to each of the content parts and fields I am returning but I haven't been able to determine what additional properties in the shapes are necessary.

[ns8482e]

Controller's View is rendered in Content zone. However any shape rendered within using @await DisplayAsync(Model.SomeShape) will rendered in zone based on placement rule.

To target the Layout zone prefix zone with / e.g. "place" : "/Header:1"

[kevinsmgov]

OK, here's the tricky part. In addition to the "FilteredNewsList" POCO object (an IEnumerable<ContentItem> collection and a Pager object) I need to return a LinkField and a TitlePart that need to go into different zones.

Assumably, I'll need a BuildDisplayAsync call for all three of these objects. In the Views folder of my module, I have the Index.cshtml

@model NewsControllerResult
@await DisplayAsync(Model.ShapeLinkField)
@await DisplayAsync(Model.ShapeTitlePart)
@await DisplayAsync(Model.ShapeFilteredNewsList)

I tried creating a driver for the LinkField but I can't segregate it to just this operation. So, I'll want to use the built in LinkField and TitlePart drivers. How can I front-load the data I pass to BuildDisplayAsync so that it picks up the right field name and differentiator?

[ns8482e]

@kevinsmgov You can create a ContentItem with LinkField and TitlePart. Query the item by Id in your controller and build display for it, so your POCO ViewModel can have three fields.

• ShapeFilteredNewsList
• ContentItemShape
• PagerShape

[kevinsmgov]

I was holding that approach in reserve, hoping there was a way to generate all this programmatically (or, at least understand the system enough to do that).

Probably the best approach then would be to create "Filtered Content Header" item for the different filter controllers and manage them as Admin settings.

Thanks for all the information.

[ns8482e]

Refer to AdminController in Flow module - that creates content item dynamically (not stored in db) and builds display and returns html as ajax response.

[kevinasdzine]

I got a working solution by returning a collection of IShape from my controller and then simply running this in the controller's view

@foreach (var zone in Model)
{
    @await DisplayAsync(zone)
}

And that covered getting shapes to global zones fine (e.g. "/Header"). However, I have a use-case now where I want to manage local zones generically (as they are from Orchard Core ContentTypes) so I can create a similar structure (e.g. article element contains header and content and footer where shapes position in their relevant local zones).

When I look at that AdminController you suggested, it's creating a ContentCard but I'm looking for some example code where a controller is creating something similar to a native ContentType shape (is that what the ItemController in OrchardCore.Contents is creating?).