Creating Mobile-Optimized Views in ASP.NET MVC 4

If you scratch the surface of common-sense considerations about programming mobile sites, you find an inherent contradiction. On one hand, you hear people screaming about being (or willing to be) mobile-first in their approach to programming applications and sites. On the other hand, you often hear the same people praise CSS media queries and liquid layouts. The contradiction I see is that the common use being made of CSS media queries and liquid layouts doesn’t put the mobile perspective before everything—it’s not a mobile-first technique. In this article I’ll explain how to use server-side logic to offer up the best display for a given device, incorporating a new feature of ASP.NET MVC 4 called display modes.