Building a Shopping Cart Part Two

Displaying and Managing the Shopping Cart

Types of Cart Display

Previously we created the cart and added items to it. Now we'll look at a couple of ways of displaying the information to the user. Firstly we'll have a basic cart summary that can be viewed on multiple pages and this will link to a more complex cart management page that would allow the cart to be amended. To allow the cart summary to appear on multiple pages will require a View Component. A View Component represents a chunk of reusable code that can be included inside another view.

Creating a View Component

Create a new folder at the route of the application called ViewComponents. In this folder create a class file called ShoppingCartViewComponent.cs. The naming convention is important here, ensure the file end ...ViewComponent.cs

Create a model at Models/CartItem.cs as follows:

The ViewComponent is set up to return a deserialized String from the session.

Creating the View for the ViewComponent

Create a View at Views/Home/Components/ShoppingCart/Default.cshtml with the following:

A local variable of cartTotal is for display purposes.

Adding the View Component to other Views

The View Component can now be added to other pages. For example in the Views/FilmDetails.cshtml file add:

Repeat the above for Views/AllFilms.cshtml and the Views/Search.cshtml views.

Building a Controller for the Manage Cart Page

The Manage Cart page will require a straight-forward Controller and View.

As with the ViewComponent the session is deserilized and made available to the view.

Building a View for the Manage Cart Page

Create a View:

The above creates a table view of the cart data.

Allow for the Removal of Cart Items

The Manage Cart View has a form that calls an Action of RemoveCartItem using POST. In the HomeController.cs set up the Action as follows:

You should now be able to remove items from the cart.