How to Get Data From User Control on Form

c#, forms, user-controls

Solution

Create one public property in `UserControl` which set or get `TextBox` text. Like

    public String Name
    {
        get { return textBox1.Text;  }
        set { textBox1.Text = value; }
    }

Now you can access Name from your Form. like :

if(UserControl1.Name == "")

Problem

I'm building a simple app in Visual Studio 2010 using C#, and I'm doing this to get familiar with user control because it seems to make it easier than creating multiple forms. On the main form, there is a dropdown list the contains 2 values, "`UCType1`" and "`UCType2`". I created 2 different user controls. I was using panel on the main form to display the user control according to what they selected in the dropdown list. I was able to display the appropriate user control based on the user selection, but now I ran into some issue. I couldn't get the main form to read data from the user control. Let's say there is a button "`Execute`" and a label "`Warning`" on the main form. There is a textbox "`Name`" on the user control. The scenario is: when the user hit "`Execute`", if "`Name`" is blank, "`Warning`" will display some error message. I was trying to use `if(UserControl1.Name.Text == "")` on the main form but I couldn't even reference it like that. I know I can just create separate forms to make it easier since that will make all variable in the same file, but I want to know if there's a way to do it with user control because I would like to get familiar with it. Thanks This is how I display my user control ``` private void ComboBox_SelectedIndexChanged(object sender, EventArgs e) { UCType1 uc1 = new UCType1(); panel1.Controls.Clear(); panel1.Controls.Add(uc1); } ``` and when I was trying to display the data from user control ``` private void executeButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { UCType1 uc1 = new UCType1(); warning.Text = uc1.Name; } ``` nothing was happening.

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