ASP.NET MVC 3 - Setting up routes - asp.net-mvc-3

Question

I'm migrating an ASP.NET web forms application to ASP.NET MVC 3. I kind of understand routing, but I sort of don't. In my application, I have created three .cshtml files in the directory located at /internal/products/find/. For the sake of demonstration, those .cshtml files are named "view1.cshtml", "view2.cshtml", and "view3.cshtml".
I have a controller named "InternalController". My goal is to use InternalController for all of the locations inside the /internal path. I'm not sure if what I'm trying to do is allowed. I assume it is. Either way, at this time, I have the following in InternalController:
public ActionResult View1()
{
return View();
}
public ActionResult View2()
{
return View();
}
public ActionResult View3()
{
return View();
}
In my global.asax.cs file, I'm trying to register the routes to these views as follows:
routes.MapRoute(
"View1",
"{controller}/products/find/view1",
new { controller = "Internal", action = "View1" }
);
routes.MapRoute(
"View2",
"{controller}/products/find/view2",
new { controller = "Internal", action = "View2" }
);
routes.MapRoute(
"View3",
"{controller}/products/find/view3",
new { controller = "Internal", action = "View3" }
);
Whenever I try to visit /internal/products/find/view1 in my browser, I see the ASP.NET error screen and it says:
The view 'View1' or its master was not found or no view engine supports the searched locations. The following locations were searched:
~/Views/internal/View1.aspx
~/Views/internal/View1.ascx
~/Views/Shared/View1.aspx
~/Views/Shared/View1.ascx
~/Views/dashboard/View1.cshtml
~/Views/dashboard/View1.vbhtml
~/Views/Shared/View1.cshtml
~/Views/Shared/View1.vbhtml
What am I doing wrong? The path /internal/products/find/view1 is the most important part for me. Ideally, I would like to expose that in InternalController everytime. But I'm having a rough go at it. What am I doing wrong?
Thanks!

Answer 1

When you write
routes.MapRoute(
"View1",
"{controller}/products/find/{action}",
new { controller = "Internal", action = "View1" }
);
it means that whenever user writes into his browser:
http://mysite.com/blahblah/products/find/blahblahview
it will activate action view1 inside controller blahblahview. But it doesn't mean that view1.cshtml file is at that path. Actually, asp.net mvc looks for views at directories defined by convention...and convetion is:
~/Views/ControllerName/ViewName
so, your view should be in a folder:
~/Views/Internal/View1.cshtml
Unlike ASP.NET WebForms you are used to, ASP.NET MVC is pretty much driven by naming conventions as you could probably see (you always name your controllers like BlahBlah*Controller*, you always place your views inside Views folder etc... Read some tutorials here and catch up with basics.