MVC 3.0 problem rendering partial view from _layout.vbhtml, models are inaccessible

[Mobileboy]

Hello group,

I’m new to asp.NET MVC. I use VS 2010 and MVC 3.0 (Visual Basic .NET).
I’m experimenting with partial views.
As an exercise, I want to create a partial view that displays the current
time.
I want to add this partial view to the masterpage. In terms of Razor, I want
to add the partial view to _Layout.html (below you find my questions).

I have the following model:
Namespace Models.ViewModels
Public Class TimeViewData

Public Function TimeAsstring() As String
Return Now.ToString
End Function


End Class
End Namespace


I created a strongly typed view _Timeview (_Timeview.vbhtml) with the
following code:

@ModelType CreatePartialView.Models.ViewModels.TimeViewData

@code
Dim TestObject As string

TestObject = Model.TimeAsstring
End Code

I want to display my parital view “_Timeview†on every page, so I added the
following code to _Layout.vbhtml:

<div id="TimeDesplay">
@Html.Partial("_Timeview)
</div>


Here are my QUESTIONS:
1. On the line “TestObject = Model.TimeAsstring†I always get a
nullreference exception, it doesn’t contain the current time.
What’s the problem?

2. A null reference exception indicates that the model is not set to an
object instance.
So I tried to change the code in _layout.vbhtml. The BIG problem is that
models.viewmodels.TimeviewData seems to be inaccessible from within
_layout.vbhtml since I don’t get code completion and I get the following
error:
Type 'models.viewmodels.TimeviewData' is not defined.
Why isn’t it accessible? What am I doing wrong?
<div id="TimeDesplay">
@code
Dim MyTimeviewData As New models.viewmodels.TimeviewData

Html.Partial("_Timeview", MyTimeviewData)
End Code


</div>