ASP.NET MVC: When to use HTML helpers in views - Tidying up the code!

I am trying to refactor my views a bit and up til now i have been using the built HTML helpers but i thought i would create my own - they're extension methods right?

I wonder if anyone can confirm or give advise when an HTML is needed? I think i once saw a document that said if you use 1 IF statement in your views encapsulate it into a html helper - would anyone agree with that?

With regards to creating html helpers, would it be better to create my own class rather than add extension methods to the HTML class that ships with MVC? Any body have ideas on this?

Or possible i shouldn't bother with HTML helpers an开发者_Python百科d just use the built in ones and continue to use my IF statements within views.

Thanks in advance

Use HTML helpers when you want to encapsulate the output of a piece of HTML markup that can take varying values.

I'd recommend creating them as extension methods to HtmlHelper rather than creating your own class, as your own class won't be available inside of the default ViewPage without either instantiating a new instance inside of the View or subclassing ViewPage and using this in the View (or passing in on the model, but that's just wrong!).

HTML Helpers are extension methods. I can confirm as well that I too use the 'if' rule when it comes to views. Any view logic coded should, IMO, be in a helper.

You can use helper to render custom markup, or control which markup(ie existing view) is displayed.

Not too sure about the ease of this, but it does lend itself to more unit testing (please comment on this aspect if someone has more info).

With regards to creating html helpers, would it be better to create my own class rather than add extension methods to the HTML class that ships with MVC? Any body have ideas on this?

If I understand correctly, in this respect my suggestion would to separate your helpers into their own classes. The reasoning behind this for me would be that you easily know when looking at your views what are standard helpers vs the ones you've created. I think this will improve maintainability.

i shouldn't bother with HTML helpers and just use the built in ones and continue to use my IF statements within views.

I'd say No! (or it depends). One of the benefits of using a helper would be to reuse the same view logic in multiple views as opposed to re-coding the same if statements. This means your code is more DRY, which is always better. In the event you need to debug some weirdness error, you only need to look in one place, the newly created helper.