[Marwix]

I have 2 classes named Main_Menu and Final. "Main_Menu" contains a designer with components on it. The second one being "Final" is where I call "Main_Menu" because I need to retrieve the text from textBox1 in the first menu class.

Here's my question: Is there a way to get the updated text from textBox1 from the menu class? I'm pretty sure you can't but I wanted to see if anybody knows a solution to this.

Basically when I proceed to click on the button on the Final class form, it shows me the text from the menu class. However, whenever I change the textBox value it still shows me the original text that was in there before I changed it.



And here is when I try to get the textBox value.



It gets the value just fine but now before I close my form, I change the textbox1 value and retry clicking my button. This time even when textBox1 does not contain the text "exampleTest", it still decides to show me "exampleText". I understand why it does this but what im really asking for is a solution to actually get the updated text from this class and not the same text even when I changed it before closing my main Form1.

It would had been much easier if I had all components in one form because then I could just select the textBox and get the updated value no matter what I do, but in this project each tabpage has its own components and design structure which makes it a little bit difficult for me to get the updated text even if it shows me the original text.

Does anyone know how to solve this? If my get and set method was static and the textBox was also static then I could easily grab the textBox value straight away but as most of you guys know that's not possible since all components are declared as private.

[Owl]

Pass the instance of the main_menu textbox into final.

[Snoweyes]

Your problem explaination is a bit weird, but i hope the following helps you.

PHP Code


<?php 
public partial class FormMain : Form
    {
        public string ExampleText
        {
            get { return tbExample.Text; }
            set { tbExample.Text = value; }
        }

        private FormSecond formSecond;

        public FormMain()
        {
            InitializeComponent();

            formSecond = new FormSecond(this);
            formSecond.Show();
        }

        private void tbExample_TextChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            formSecond.ExampleText = $"{tbExample.Text}";
        }
    } 


PHP Code


<?php 
public partial class FormSecond : Form
    {
        public string ExampleText
        {
            get { return tbExample.Text; }
            set { tbExample.Text = value; }
        }

        private FormMain formMain;

        public FormSecond(FormMain formMain)
        {
            InitializeComponent();

            this.formMain = formMain;
        }

        private void tbExample_TextChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            formMain.ExampleText = $"{tbExample.Text}";
        }
    } 


[0xDEAD10CC]

Pass the instance of the main_menu textbox into final.

Poor design, he just wants the string, not the class object. Shouldn't expose the TextBox itself...

None of the above solutions are very good either. Think about how the MessageBox class returns results, do you think it returns references to its controls back to the caller? lol ❓...

[Snoweyes]

Poor design, he just wants the string, not the class object. Shouldn't expose the TextBox itself...

None of the above solutions are very good either. Think about how the MessageBox class returns results, do you think it returns references to its controls back to the caller? lol ❓...

You are right. What do you think about using the ref keyword? Could actually do the job, but for some reason i don't like using the ref keyword. Would like to hear your opinion about it.

[0xDEAD10CC]

You are right. What do you think about using the ref keyword? Could actually do the job, but for some reason i don't like using the ref keyword. Would like to hear your opinion about it.

The ref keyword for what? It's fine if you really need a reference to the variable but in most cases not really required and I don't see where you would use that here or why you would need a reference to the string. Use events or a property that exposes the string indirectly.

The goal is to expose an interface that you can control to the outside world, not exposing the actual data and objects themselves, which is what your solution is doing. This is the way more people should start thinking because if you have to change things around in the future, you only have to worry about how your one class gives away data and does things, rather than every other class that interacts with it on a per-function level...

[Ninja]

Your problem explaination is a bit weird, but i hope the following helps you.

PHP Code


<?php 
public partial class FormMain : Form
    {
        public string ExampleText
        {
            get { return tbExample.Text; }
            set { tbExample.Text = value; }
        }

        private FormSecond formSecond;

        public FormMain()
        {
            InitializeComponent();

            formSecond = new FormSecond(this);
            formSecond.Show();
        }

        private void tbExample_TextChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            formSecond.ExampleText = $"{tbExample.Text}";
        }
    } 


PHP Code


<?php 
public partial class FormSecond : Form
    {
        public string ExampleText
        {
            get { return tbExample.Text; }
            set { tbExample.Text = value; }
        }

        private FormMain formMain;

        public FormSecond(FormMain formMain)
        {
            InitializeComponent();

            this.formMain = formMain;
        }

        private void tbExample_TextChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            formMain.ExampleText = $"{tbExample.Text}";
        }
    } 


Instead of storing a form reference, how about making an event for that textbox that the other form can subscribe to?

---

You are right. What do you think about using the ref keyword? Could actually do the job, but for some reason i don't like using the ref keyword. Would like to hear your opinion about it.

Why ref? Form is already a reference type (I think)?

[0xDEAD10CC]

Personally I like containing all of the data within a single object that anyone can pickup after invoking an instance of the form and closing it, because you can reference usages of that object much more easily to see where in your code you're using form results, and unless you want to do something with the semi-filled in form to be a little more proactive with the results as they come in, there's no need for using an event. Both ways though are much cleaner than passing back the entire UI object and exposing private implementation.

[Marwix]

I will give it a try later today and see if it works.

Thanks guys!