Note: this is based on ASP.NET MVC 2 RC , and will not work on earlier builds.   The quick pitch: make your User Controls as cool as built-in render helpers! The goal of this post is to show you how to change the way MVC user controls are called from something like this: <%= Html.Partial("~/Views/Shared/gravatar.ascx", new { Email = "foo@bar.com", Size = 80 }) %> To something that looks just like a built-in render helper (like Html.TextBox(…)): <%= Html.Gravatar("foo@bar.com", 80) %>   The current model for User Controls in MVC If you have used ASP.NET MVC, you probably know that you can use User Controls (.ascx files) to provide partial rendering. For example, the default MVC app has a Site…(read more)