c# MVC hide header buttons conditionally

Question

In my _Layout.cshtml I have the following code which will not show the buttons if the user's role is UserType1

     @if (!(HttpContext.Current.User.IsInRole("UserType1")))
     { 
       <li><a href="../St/Index">Static</a> </li>
       <li><a href="../St/Clients">Clients</a> </li>
     }

I was wondering if there is a better or best practice way of doing this. Please note that I am putting this code in my _Layout.cshtml file.

Answer 1

This seems fine. Some people (like me) might prefer to bring this a step further and wrap this check in a custom HTML helper though in order to be able to unit test the condition:

@if (Html.ShouldShowButtons())
{ 
    <li><a href="../St/Index">Static</a> </li>
    <li><a href="../St/Clients">Clients</a> </li>
}

and the implementation of the helper:

public static class HtmlExtensions
{
    public static bool ShouldShowButtons(this HtmlHelper html)
    {
        return html.ViewContext.HttpContext.User.IsInRole("UserType1");
    }
}

As an alternative you could implement more complex logic using child actions:

@{Html.RenderAction("MenuButtons", "Menu");}

You would then have a corresponding controller action which is checking whether the user is in the required role and render a partial view with the markup.