MVC views are displaying _Layout even when I don't specify them - razor

Question

Perhaps I'm just having a bad day.
MVC views seem to be displaying _Layout.cshtml even when I do not specify layout. Is it defaulted somewhere?
The page in question is my KeywordAdmin.cshtml partial view which looks like this (this is the file in its entirety):
<div class="form-horizontal">
<div class="row">
<div class="col-md-3">
Test column 1
</div>
<div class="col-md-4">
Test column 2
</div>
<div class="col-md-5">
Test column 3
</div>
</div>
</div>
When I navigate to localhost/Keyword/KeywordAdmin I see this with the header and footer defined in _Layout.cshtml. If I wanted it to use that layout, I would have specified it.

Answer 1

The layout system is in place for helping you keep things uniform. Based on your statement, it seems you'd prefer not leverage it, which you can do too.
Look in _ViewStart.cshtml within the Views folder.
If KeywordAdmin.cshtml is within a subfolder, you may have another _ViewStart.cshtml in that folder which would take precedence.
If you set Layout = ""; you'll go without the layout. If KeywordAdmin.cshtml is just an oddball item and it shouldn't use your normal layout, it would be recommended to add to the top of KeywordAdmin.cshtml:
#{
Layout = "";
}
If you're wanting to leverage MVC in a way that meets your previous expectations, I'd recommend setting at the top of _ViewStart.cshtml:
#{
Layout = ""; // most likely "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml" right now
}
and then on any pages where you do wish to leverage the layout, adding:
#{
Layout = "~Views/Path.../LayoutName.cshtml";
}