Link generation improvements

[javiercn]

We have a relatively big backlog of issues with regards to link generation changes that happened between traditional routing and endpoint routing. One of the biggest changes is in the way we deal with ambient values. Changes in endpoint routing can cause some abnormal behaviors when generating links.

• Feature request: strongly-typed route values in a tag-helpers #35376
• [Suggestion] Make DefaultLinkGenerator public and non sealed #25121
• Url.Action doesn't include action name when there are more parameters #24480
• Link is mis-rendering based on the current page #24455
• Url generate problem #24288
• RedirectToAction() makes the link to HttpPost action instead of GET #23089
• TransformOutbound of route constraint is not called when the route segment is optional #23063
• RedirectToAction in Core 3.1 MVC route values don't pass through if param has default #22303
• Generating URLs for a different action on the same controller reuses ambient values #18400
• MapDynamicControllerRoute doesn't work with DefaultLinkGenerator #16965
• Razor Pages: Urls generated by built-in taghelpers do not honor PageRouteModelConvention #16960
• Url.RouteUrl is blank in ASP.NET Core 3.0 #14877
• Make link creation typesafe using expressions #14665
• Make it easy to configure a host/scheme for absolute URLs with LinkGenerator #14192
• Consider using Endpoint Name for auth-related URL-things #6993
• Redirect should encode URLs if it needs to #4919
• Update the ExceptionHandlerMiddleware to support getting the path to redirect to via LinkGenerator #4277
• LinkGenerator generate wrong links across areas (2) #31476
• Adding feature to Router for custom language URL #40736

[mkArtakMSFT]

@javiercn it seems this one never got broken into individual issues prioritized. Costing the umbrella as L for now, but prioritizing the items internally could help/.

[yecril71pl]

Consider the following code:

services .AddRazorPages(options => options .Conventions .AddPageRoute ("/A/B", "/A/C")); 

Assume that the page /A/B exists and the page /A/C does not.
in page /A/D:

<a asp-page="C" asp-route-id="0" >&hellip;</a >

Then the result is

<a href="/A/D?id=0" >&hellip;</a >

It seems the only work-around is to make C.cshtml.cs redirect to B.

[valeriob]

Shall i suggest to track this issue too ? #31476

[Alerinos]

I think it is also worth being interested in.
Multi routing is sorely lacking

#37485
#39719

[Alerinos]

When it comes to generating links, I would recommend using the page class. Example:

Counter.razor 
@page "/Counter"

<link href="@Pages.Counter">Counter</link>

output:
<a href="/Counter">Counter</a>

This causes the content of @page to be inserted in place of href

For this you can create a provider that adds other constants, e.g. culture.

[valeriob]

Are you sure link generation can't be fixed on net7 ? So much energy is spent on minimal api and blarzors instead, not much on mvc I'm afraid :(
I'v seen this movie on net5, then net6, now net7....

[nfplee]

@valeriob I echo your thoughts about MVC. So much wasted energy is being spent on improvements to minimal API just to mimic what you can already do in MVC. As for Blazor, how about showing some love for people that use alternatives such as htmx and/or petite-vue/alpine.js which compliment MVC and razor pages.

The link generation improvements would benefit everyone. The specific issue I'm concerned with is #16960 which was a regression introduced with endpoint routing and has still not been addressed.