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Hi @p-plater,<br />
<br />
I suggest to make the search part which you want to reuse across multiple projects as user control and use it across all forms including Search-Forms.<br />
<a href="https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa302342.aspx" rel="ugc">https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa302342.aspx</a><br />
By making control public, the form loses the control (does not know) when some property/state of a control is modified. &nbsp;Also form may contain lot more things then just the control that you want to be reuse, in that case it is a overhead for every other project to import all the controls via form although they might be interested in only using one of the controls.<br />
<br />
Thanks,<br />
Karrtik
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Kaufmed is right if you understand what he says and are at a level to implement these features.<br />
<br />
I gave you the easy way to do what you wanted, judging your expertise by the questions that you asked in the past. I might be wrong in my judgement.<br />
<br />
If you are up to it, he gave you the proper way to do it.
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If I understand what Kaufmed is saying correctly then what I need to do is put the Search Forms in the BLL DLL?<br />
So when the UI sends a Search to the BLL if it needs to display a search form then the BLL displays the form then it can return the selected values back to the UI.<br />
<br />
Is this Correct?<br />
<br />
The only drawback in doing it that way is it makes the BLL Windows Forms dependant. (If I need to make a WPF application it would need a Modified BLL)<br />
<br />
Am I Understanding it correctly?
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Yes.<br />
<br />
But if you think to eventually go to WPF, although I am no expert on that subject, it seems that there are ways to use windows form with WPF applications.<br />
<br />
You might thus use conditional compilation to automatically create 2 different versions of the same dll from the same source code. One that displays the Windows Form normally, and the other one that uses the tools in the <a href="https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/System.Windows.Forms.Integration%28v=vs.110%29.aspx" rel="ugc">System.Windows.Forms.Integ<wbr />ration Namespace</a>.
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Many Thanks Yet Again.<br />
<br />
Experts Exchange is a wealth of Knowledge.
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<div class="content wysiwyg-content">
Is there anything wrong with setting windows forms controls to Public?<br />
<br />
I am wanting to make a Project of &quot;Search Forms&quot; that I can simply import into different Projects that access the same Database design.<br />
But I can't access the form controls from the other Projects unless the Controls are set to Public
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Is there anything wrong with setting windows forms controls to Public?

I am wanting to make a Project of "Search Forms" that I can simply import into different Projects that access the same Database design.
But I can't access the form controls from the other Projects unless the Controls are set to Public

Set Windows Forms Controls as Public

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Visual Basic.NET

The .NET Framework is not specific to any one programming language; rather, it includes a library of functions that allows developers to rapidly build applications. Several supported languages include C#, VB.NET, C++ or ASP.NET.