Rendering an email throws a TemplateCompilationException using RazorEngine 3 in a non-MVC project - razor

Question

I am trying to render emails in a windows service host.
I use RazorEngine 3 forked by coxp which has support for Razor 2.
https://github.com/coxp/RazorEngine/tree/release-3.0/src
This works fine for a couple of emailtemplates but there is one causing me problems.
#model string
Click here to enter a new password for your account.
This throws a CompilationException: The name 'WriteAttribute' does not exist in the current context. So passing in a string as model and putting it in the href-attribute causes problems.
I can make it work by changing this line by:
#Raw(string.Format("Klik hier.", #Model))
but this makes the template very unreadable and harder to pass along to a marketing department for further styling.
I like to add that referencing the RazorEngine by using a Nuget package is not a solution since it is based on Razor 1 and somewhere along the process the DLL for system.web.razor gets replaced by version 2 which breaks any code using RazorEngine. It seems more interesting to use Razor 2 to benefit from the new features and to be up to date.
Any suggestions on how to fix this would be great. Sharing your experiences is also very welcome.
UPDATE 1
It seems like calling SetTemplateBaseType might help, but this method does not exist anymore, so I wonder how to be able to bind the templatebasetype?
//Missing method in the new RazorEngine build from coxp.
Razor.SetTemplateBaseType(typeof(HtmlTemplateBase<>));

Answer 1

I use Windsor to inject the template service rather than using the Razor object. Here is a simplified part of the code that shows how to set the base template type.
private static ITemplateService CreateTemplateService()
{
var config = new TemplateServiceConfiguration
{
BaseTemplateType = typeof (HtmlTemplateBase<>),
};
return new TemplateService(config);
}

Answer 2

RazorEngine 3.1.0
Little bit modified example based on coxp answer without the injection:
private static bool _razorInitialized;
private static void InitializeRazor()
{
if (_razorInitialized) return;
_razorInitialized = true;
Razor.SetTemplateService(CreateTemplateService());
}
private static ITemplateService CreateTemplateService()
{
var config = new TemplateServiceConfiguration
{
BaseTemplateType = typeof (HtmlTemplateBase<>),
};
return new TemplateService(config);
}
public static string ParseTemplate(string name, object model)
{
InitializeRazor();
var appFileName = "~/EmailTemplates/" + name + ".cshtml";
var template = File.ReadAllText(HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath(appFileName));
return RazorEngine.Razor.Parse(template, model);
}