accessing controls on another form

Question

HI here's my problem; My application loads up 3 forms at startup. Deppending on what button is press on form1 i want to show or hide controls on form2. I cant seem to get access to the controls on from2 to hide them unless i create another instance from within form1 which i dont want to do. i just want to use the one creted when the program starts up. Any ideas?

cprie · Answer

Here are two ways In both cases you have to declare a member of the second form in your main form so you can access the second one in your button Eventhandler protected Form2 secondForm = null; ------ Make the controls on the second form public so you can access them private void button1_Click(object sender System.EventArgs e) { this.secondForm = new Form2(); this.secondForm.Show(); } private void button2_Click(object sender System.EventArgs e) { if(this.secondForm != null) this.secondForm.button1.Visible = false; } I dont think this is good but depends on you to use it or not ------- Or add Properties for the second form like this public bool HideButton { set { this.button1.Visible = !value; } } and then call the property private void button2_Click(object sender System.EventArgs e) { if(this.secondForm != null) this.secondForm.HideButton = true; } I#ve tried the second one cause this is the better way i think but the first 'll also work. prie