User defined helper with the feature @using(Html.MyHelper) possible?

[Wolfram Hubert]

Hello MVC Community,

I have written a helper for debugging (Visualization of the partial
views on the website):

using System.Collections.Specialized;
using System.Configuration;
using System.Text;

namespace System.Web.Mvc
{
public static class DebugHelpers
{
/// <summary>
/// Use Html.BeginDebug(this.TemplateInfo.VirtualPath)
/// Example: Convert VirtualPath to a CSS-class
/// VirtualPath: ~/Views/Products/List.cshtml
/// CSS-class: debug-views-products-list
/// </summary>
public static MvcHtmlString BeginDebug(this HtmlHelper html,
string viewName)
{
StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder();

if(Convert.ToBoolean(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["debug"]))
{
viewName = viewName.Replace("~/", "").Replace("/",
"-").ToLower();
if(viewName.LastIndexOf('.') > -1)
viewName = viewName.Substring(0,
viewName.LastIndexOf('.'));

result.Append(@"<div class=""debug-" + viewName +
@""">");
}
return MvcHtmlString.Create(result.ToString());
}

public static MvcHtmlString EndDebug(this HtmlHelper html)
{
StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder();
if
(Convert.ToBoolean(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["debug"]))
result.Append(@"</div>");
return MvcHtmlString.Create(result.ToString());
}

}
}

Example for using my helper in a cshtml file:
@Html.BeginDebug(this.TemplateInfo.VirtualPath)
<h2>MyView</h2>
@Html.EndDebug()

Example for the CSS classes in the Site.css
/* Styles for debugging
-----------------------------------------------------------*/
.debug-views-products-list {background-color: Yellow;}
.debug-views-shared-productsummary {background-color:Fuchsia;}
.debug-views-shared-menu {background-color: Lime;}

My helper worked fine. I see helper (example: @using(Html.BeginForm())
{ // some code }), that add to the final tag automatically. Can I use
this feature in my helper? What do I need in my helper to use this
feature?

Regards

Wolfram Hubert

[Stephen Russell]

Hi Wolfram

On 4/02/2011 8:42 PM, Wolfram Hubert wrote:
> [...]

>
> My helper worked fine. I see helper (example: @using(Html.BeginForm())
> { // some code }), that add to the final tag automatically. Can I use
> this feature in my helper? What do I need in my helper to use this
> feature?

You need to learn about IDisposable. The using statement calls
IDisposable.Dispose at the end of the statement. Your Dispose method could
then call the EndDebug helper.

Steve.