Why am I getting "The directive 'control' is unknown" error in ASP.NET MVC?

I'm working on an editor page for a project in ASP.NET MVC. I would like to use a control for both the create page and the edit page so I don't have to duplicate code. I've set up an EditorTemplates folder inside /Views/Shared to hold my templates. And I've placed a .ascx file in there called ArticlePresentation.ascx.

ArticlePresentation.ascx looks like this:

<%@ Control Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl<genesis.Core.Presentation.ArticlePresentation>" %>

Testing the control

My Edit.aspx view looks like this:

<%@ Page Title="" Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/Views/Shared/genesis.Master" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage<genesis.Core.Presentation.ArticlePresentation>" %>

<asp:Content ID="Content1" ContentPlaceHolderID="TitleContent" runat="server">
    Edit
</asp:Content>

<asp:Content ID="Content2" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainContent" runat="server">

    <h2>Edit</h2>
    <% using (Html.BeginForm()) {%>
        <%: Html.ValidationSummary(true) %>
        <%: Html.EditorFor(ArticlePresentation => ArticlePresentation)%>
    <% } %>

    <div>
        <%: Html.ActionLink("Back to List", "Index") %>
    </div>

</asp:Content>

I can build the site without getting any errors, but, when I run the site and browse to the editing page I get this error:

System.Web.HttpParseException was unhandled by user code

 Message=The directive 'control' is unknown.

 Source=System.Web

 ErrorCode=-2147467259

 WebEventCode=0

 FileName=C:<path to folder>asp.net mvc\genesis\genesis\Views\Shared\EditorTemplates\ArticlePresentation.aspx

 Line=2

 VirtualPath=/Views/Shared/EditorTemplates/ArticlePresentation.aspx

 StackTrace:

      at System.Web.UI.TemplateParser.ParseString(String text, VirtualPath virtualPath, Encoding fileEncoding)

      at System.Web.UI.TemplateParser.ParseFile(String physicalPath, VirtualPath virtualPath)

      at System.Web.UI.TemplateParser.ParseInternal()

      at System.Web.UI.TemplateParser.Parse()

      at System.Web.Compilation.BaseTemplateBuildProvider.get_CodeCompilerType()

      at System.Web.Compilation.BuildProvider.GetCompilerTypeFromBuildProvider(BuildProvider buildProvider)

      at System.Web.Compilation.BuildProvidersCompiler.ProcessBuildProvid开发者_StackOverflow中文版ers()

      at System.Web.Compilation.BuildProvidersCompiler.PerformBuild()

etc... etc...etc...

I've searched google looking for solutions, but everything I've found so far relates to having the control in an aspx page rather than a ascx page.

Does anyone know what could be causing this error?

The reason you are getting this error is because your file has an .aspx extension and not .ascx. Read the error message carefully:

ErrorCode=-2147467259

WebEventCode=0

FileName=C:\Documents and Settings\bquakkelaar\Desktop\dropstuff\asp.net mvc\genesis\genesis\Views\Shared\EditorTemplates\ArticlePresentation.aspx

Now rename the file to ArticlePresentation.ascx and everything will work as expected.

Also you could replace this line:

<%: Html.EditorFor(ArticlePresentation => ArticlePresentation)%>

with this:

<%: Html.EditorForModel() %>