C# Accessing dotnetBrowser from a UserControl

Question

So essentially I'm using the dotNetBrowser for a project that i'm loading into a panel on my main form, and I have a button in a usercontrol for user input so it can interact with the browser. Here's what I have:

public partial class Form1 : Form
{

    public BrowserView browserView = new WinFormsBrowserView();

    public Form1()
    {
        InitializeComponent();

        this.panel1.Controls.Add((Control)browserView);
        browserView.Browser.LoadURL("URL TO BE LOADED");

        browserView.Browser.FinishLoadingFrameEvent += delegate (object sender, FinishLoadingEventArgs e)
        {
            if (e.IsMainFrame)
                {
                // Do stuff when loaded
                } else return;
            }
        };

    }
}

That works fine, in my usercontrol.cs I have:

    public void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        BrowserView br = (this.Parent as Form1).Controls["browserView"] as BrowserView;
        br.Browser.LoadURL("NEW URL");   
    }

So that when the button is clicked it can load a new url. But this is throwing a null exception.

Basically I need these two components to be able to pass information on to eachother. The method I've used worked fine for other Form1 controls, but not the browser it seems.

Any advice?

Answer 1

In your case, browserView is a name of the public variable, so you can simply use(this.Parent as Form1).browserView to access it.

Answer 2

Your are adding browserView to Form1.panel1, but trying to get it from (this.Parent as Form1).

You don't need to search for BrowserView when you have explicit reference to it. I suggest giving this reference to the user control. User control having the knowledge of the innards of the hosting form means that information is flowing in the wrong direction.

Names of controls are given to them by IDE, and are empty when controls are created in code.