How do I display multiple pieces of user information on every page in ASP.NET MVC 2?

I'm building a site in ASP.NET MVC 2 that will allow for anonymous users and registered users. When a user is logged in, I want to display multiple pieces of information related to that profile on every page (i.e. hometown, favorite color, etc.). From a view perspective, I understand using Master pages and creating partials to keep it DRY.

However, where I am getting stuck is how do I pass this user information to the view for every page? I already have the relationships between database tables established (I'm using EF), so I can do this on开发者_开发知识库 an individual basis for each action through ViewData, but that's obviously ridiculous for every page on the site.

So far, my research has started to lead me down the path of creating a base controller and base view model that the other controllers and view models will inherit from. But I feel like I'm missing something obvious. Any pointers?

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If you have your Master page use the RenderAction method, it can invoke controller actions for the various repetitive parts of your page, each of which can perform data access and render a partial view. That allows you to separate your view models while still displaying certain elements on all your pages.

This approach works great for us.

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We use a base controller to store it in ViewData.

You could also use an action attribute on the controller rather than inheriting from a base controller.

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You could create a base class for your models that contains the data that is display on every page.