Accessing text box on Form1 from Form2

Question

I am new to vb.net so forgive me if this is an easy question.

I have a created a class library project that houses two windows forms, Form1 and Form2. The main class library has the event to open Form1. A button on Form1 launches Form2. The bulk of the code is in Form1, which I don't want to change if I can help it.

What I am trying to do, is access a sub that is on Form1 from Form2. That sub is changing the value of a text box on Form 1. I don't get any errors when I compile the project, however, nothing happens.

Here is an example

Form1:

Public Sub test()

    Me.Panel1.Controls("Textbox1").Text = "Test"

End Sub

Form2:

Private Sub Button1_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click

    Dim MainForm As New Form1
    Me.Close()
    MainForm.test()


End Sub

Don't get too caught up on how I built it out, I have tried about 20 different things and this is where I am at now.

I have tried defining Form1 in the sub test(). I have tried setting sub test() to shared. I have tried closing Form2 and activating Form1. I have tried changing the modifiers property on the text box to public. I have tried making Form1 the parent and Form2 a child (I honestly don't understand MDI very much). All these results end up in a project that will compile but wont give me any results. My code accesses the sub just fine, it wont access the text box's text property.

Any suggestions will help. I am trying to access the text boxes in a way that I can loop through all of them. For example: Me.Panel.Controls("Textbox" & i).Text = "Something". Also I would like to keep the sub in the class for Form1 if I can.

Any suggestions would be great!

Answer 1

You are creating a brand new Form1 in Form2, that is the problem.

Just use :

Call Form1.test()

By the way, I think this code in the sub is an easier way to set the text:

Panel1.TextBox1.Text = "Test"