CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#winforms
JustBenji
JustBenji

Reputation: 73

Controlling a rich text box control that is on form 1 from form 2

I'm sorry if this seems incredibly obvious or a very much commonly asked question, but I've been searching and looking over posts for a while now and i still can't seem to get it.

I'm just getting into learning C# and I set myself a little project, making a word processor around a richtextbox control with a few extra features.

I'm currently just adding in the ability to 'Find & Replace' text, and the below code is working when used on the same form as the rich text box control.

richTextBox1.Rtf = richTextBox1.Rtf.Replace("bob", "bill");

I don't want to use a dialog box or something similar, i'm coming direct from our old friend VB6 though, so i'm not sure if they still even exist as such, so i'm making an external form that acts sort of like a dialog box, where i'd like the user to be able to enter the text to look for and replace and then press okay, and be sent back to the main form, sounds simple huh, probably is, i'm not sure what i'm missing...

private void findReplaceToolStripMenuItem_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    Form3 AboutBox = new Form3();
    AboutBox.ShowDialog();
}

I've tried my best at implementing a few of the answers I've read over here, in one of them i managed to be able to control form1 but only if i opened a new instance of it with form1.show(); after the code, which is kind of useless in what i'm trying to achieve.

I've set the richTextBox1.Modifiers to Public, but I'm still scratching my head over this one.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 186

Answers (1)

Grant Winney
Grant Winney

Reputation: 66449

Instead of making the RichTextBox public, I'd add a property to the other form that returns the text from that control, like this:

public class SearchForm : Form
{
    public string SearchTerm
    {
        get { return richTextBox1.Text; }
    }

    ...

When the user closes the "search" form, you can get the search term by referencing the property:

private void findReplaceToolStripMenuItem_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    string searchTerm;

    using (var searchForm = new SearchForm())  // used 'using' to dispose the form
    {
        searchForm.ShowDialog();

        searchTerm = searchForm.SearchTerm;
    }

    // do something with searchTerm
}

You'll find this makes maintenance more manageable too. Changing the names of controls in one form shouldn't require you to make changes in any other form that uses them.

Upvotes: 1

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