Razor MVC return HTML - asp.net-mvc-4

Question

I tried to research a bit, but has not found a proper solution to this.
What I'm trying to do is to have a HTML.Action in a page like so
Html.Action("Calendar", "GlobalShared")
Inside the action "Calendar", I need to return the result of the html of the traditional calendar control
public ActionResult Calendar(
String ID,
String CssClass,
int CellSpacing,
int CellPadding,
String BorderWidth,
String ShowGridLines,
String ShowTitle,
String DayNameFormat
)
{
System.Web.UI.WebControls.Calendar cal = new System.Web.UI.WebControls.Calendar();
cal.ID = "MyCalendar";
cal.CssClass = "month-view";
cal.CellSpacing = 0;
cal.CellPadding = -1;
cal.BorderWidth = 0;
cal.ShowGridLines = false;
cal.ShowTitle = false;
cal.DayNameFormat = System.Web.UI.WebControls.DayNameFormat.Full;
}
How can I do this? Btw, I use HTML.Action is because I read that it returns a html string, is that correct or should I be doing some other ways?
Thanks
Edit. Before I attempted this in a controller, I tried the following code in a view .cshtml and it works, but I prefer to move the code into a controller
#{
System.Web.UI.WebControls.Calendar cal = new System.Web.UI.WebControls.Calendar();
cal.ID = "MyCalendar";
cal.CssClass = "month-view";
cal.CellSpacing = 0;
cal.CellPadding = -1;
cal.BorderWidth = 0;
cal.ShowGridLines = false;
cal.ShowTitle = false;
cal.DayNameFormat = System.Web.UI.WebControls.DayNameFormat.Full;
cal.RenderControl(new HtmlTextWriter(Html.ViewContext.Writer));
}
Edit #2. The reason I want to use that in a controller is because if in the future, i want to hook up an event say "DayRender", I can do it in the controller. I can not do the same in a view without polluting the view page.

Answer 1

Okay. Thanks guys. I figured out. Basically, I need to use #{Html.RenderAction(..)} and in the action itself, use StringBuilder/StringWriter and then return Content(...). Code below
In View
#{Html.RenderAction("Calendar", "GlobalShared");}
In Controller
[ChildActionOnly]
public ActionResult Calendar(
)
{
System.Web.UI.WebControls.Calendar cal = new System.Web.UI.WebControls.Calendar();
cal.ID = "MyCalendar";
cal.CssClass = "month-view";
cal.CellSpacing = 0;
cal.CellPadding = -1;
cal.BorderWidth = 0;
cal.ShowGridLines = false;
cal.ShowTitle = false;
cal.DayNameFormat = System.Web.UI.WebControls.DayNameFormat.Full;
cal.DayRender += new System.Web.UI.WebControls.DayRenderEventHandler(CalendarDayRender);
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
using (System.IO.StringWriter sw = new System.IO.StringWriter(sb))
{
System.Web.UI.HtmlTextWriter writer = new System.Web.UI.HtmlTextWriter(sw);
cal.RenderControl(writer);
}
String calHTML = sb.ToString();
return Content(calHTML);
}
private void CalendarDayRender(object sender, System.Web.UI.WebControls.DayRenderEventArgs e)
{
e.Cell.Text = "";
if (e.Day.Date == System.DateTime.Today)
{
e.Cell.CssClass = "today";
System.Web.UI.HtmlControls.HtmlGenericControl h3 = new System.Web.UI.HtmlControls.HtmlGenericControl("h3");
h3.InnerHtml = HttpContext.GetGlobalResourceObject("JTG_DateTime", "JTK_Today") + " " + e.Day.DayNumberText;
e.Cell.Controls.Add(h3);
}
}

Answer 2

Simply move your code
#{
System.Web.UI.WebControls.Calendar cal = new System.Web.UI.WebControls.Calendar();
cal.ID = "MyCalendar";
cal.CssClass = "month-view";
cal.CellSpacing = 0;
cal.CellPadding = -1;
cal.BorderWidth = 0;
cal.ShowGridLines = false;
cal.ShowTitle = false;
cal.DayNameFormat = System.Web.UI.WebControls.DayNameFormat.Full;
cal.RenderControl(new HtmlTextWriter(Html.ViewContext.Writer));
}
in a view and return that View from your Calendar Action.
public ActionResult Calendar(
String ID,
String CssClass,
int CellSpacing,
int CellPadding,
String BorderWidth,
String ShowGridLines,
String ShowTitle,
String DayNameFormat
)
{
return View("Calendar");
}
You can either create a ViewModel or use ViewBag to transfer these values from Calendar Action to your newly created View