NET-11: Migrate HomeController to .NET Core 6

[devin-ai-integration]

Summary

Migrates HomeController (5 actions: Index, About, Contact, Internals, CodeView) and its associated Razor views from ASP.NET MVC 5 (System.Web.Mvc) to ASP.NET Core 6 (Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc) per NET-11. The legacy SampleWebApp (.NET Framework 4.5.1) project is left untouched — the new code lives in a parallel SampleWebApp.Core project alongside a new Tests.Core xUnit project.

What changed

• New SampleWebApp.Core/ project (net6.0, Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Web):
  • Program.cs — minimal hosting; AddControllersWithViews(); classic {controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?} route to preserve URLs.
  • Controllers/HomeController.cs — 5 actions ported, signatures changed ActionResult → IActionResult; behavior preserved (incl. ViewBag.Message on About).
  • Models/InternalsInfo.cs — replaced the Windows-only PerformanceCounter("Memory", "Available MBytes") with cross-platform GC.GetGCMemoryInfo().TotalAvailableMemoryBytes; kept the four public properties so views bind unchanged.
  • Views/Home/*.cshtml (Index, About, Contact, Internals, CodeView) — content preserved 1:1 from the legacy project.
  • Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml — original Bootstrap 3 markup kept; replaced @Styles.Render / @Scripts.Render with direct <link> / <script> tags and dropped WebUiInitialise.HostType (footer hardcoded for now).
  • Views/_ViewImports.cshtml, Views/_ViewStart.cshtml — standard .NET Core boilerplate.
  • wwwroot/css/site.css + wwwroot/lib/{bootstrap,jquery} — Bootstrap 3.3.2 + jQuery 1.10.2 copied verbatim from the legacy project for visual parity.
  • appsettings.json, appsettings.Development.json, Properties/launchSettings.json.
• New Tests.Core/ project (xUnit, net6.0) with one test per action verifying view name + model.
• global.json pins SDK to 6.0 (with rollForward: latestFeature).
• SampleWebApp.Core.sln so the new projects can be built/tested independently of the legacy SampleWebApp.sln.

Acceptance criteria

• All 5 action methods functional in .NET Core (returns IActionResult, View() / View(model)).
• All views render correctly with proper styling (verified by HTTP smoke test below — all 5 routes return 200 with expected content, Bootstrap CSS loaded).
• Navigation between actions works properly (links to Home/Index|About|Contact|Internals|CodeView); links to not-yet-migrated controllers (Posts/Tags/Blogs/PostsAsync/TagsAsync) intentionally preserved per Phase 1 design and will 404 until later phases ship.
• No compilation errors or warnings (dotnet build → 0 warnings, 0 errors).
• Maintains original functionality and behavior.

Local verification

$ dotnet build SampleWebApp.Core.sln -c Release
Build succeeded. 0 Warning(s), 0 Error(s)

$ dotnet test SampleWebApp.Core.sln -c Release --no-build
Passed!  - Failed: 0, Passed: 5, Skipped: 0, Total: 5

$ dotnet format SampleWebApp.Core.sln --verify-no-changes
(clean — exit 0)

$ dotnet run --project SampleWebApp.Core --no-launch-profile --urls http://127.0.0.1:5187
GET /                -> 200  (renders "Welcome to the Sample MVC Web Application - basic version")
GET /Home/About      -> 200  ("About this site")
GET /Home/Contact    -> 200  ("About the Author")
GET /Home/Internals  -> 200  (Renders InternalsInfo: WorkerThreads, AvailableThreads, AvailableMbytes, HeapMemoryUsedKbytes)
GET /Home/CodeView   -> 200  ("Introduction to GenericServices")
GET /lib/bootstrap/css/bootstrap.min.css -> 200

Review & Testing Checklist for Human

• Confirm the assumed project name SampleWebApp.Core is what we want long-term (matches prior abandoned attempts; alternative open).
• Confirm it's acceptable that the navbar in _Layout.cshtml still links to Posts/Tags/Blogs/PostsAsync/TagsAsync (these will 404 until Phase 2+). The plan comment on NET-11 listed this as the by-design Phase 1 behavior.
• InternalsInfo.AvailableMbytes now reflects GC.GetGCMemoryInfo().TotalAvailableMemoryBytes (process-wide memory budget) instead of system-wide "Available MBytes" — confirm this semantic shift is acceptable. If we need exact parity on Windows, we can guard with OperatingSystem.IsWindows() and use System.Diagnostics.PerformanceCounter NuGet there.
• Spot-check view rendering in a real browser (Bootstrap 3 navbar collapse, dropdown menus, _Layout body padding).
• Decide whether SampleWebApp.Core.sln should be merged into the existing SampleWebApp.sln later or kept as a parallel solution during the migration.

Notes

• This PR does not touch the legacy SampleWebApp/ (.NET Framework 4.5.1) project; both projects coexist during the migration.
• NET-11 declared a dependency on "Project Setup and Infrastructure task completion" (NET-10). NET-10's only Done subtask (NET-15) was never merged to master, so the minimal .NET Core 6 project scaffolding needed to host HomeController is included here. If the team wants NET-10 to land as its own PR first, this PR can be rebased onto it.
• Views still use @Html.ActionLink (rather than <a asp-controller=... asp-action=...> tag helpers) to keep the diff minimal and preserve identical view source to the legacy app. Migrating to tag helpers can be a follow-up.
• Subtasks completed by this PR:
  • NET-18 (Controller Structure Migration)
  • NET-19 (Action Methods Migration)
  • NET-20 (View Migration)

Link to Devin session: https://app.devin.ai/sessions/5e9a777792fc44a088ccc73cd827ebc1

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