Understanding application level variables and functions compared to C++

[dazinith]

i am a newbie at c#, but have a good amount of time with vc++ development.. can someone help me with some questions? in vc++ my application could have variables and functions like:

CCompanyStore* myCompanyStore;
void ShowAboutDialog();

and i would call them throughout the program like:

CMyApp* pApp = (CMyApp*)AfxGetApp();
pApp->ShowAboutDialog();

i would use these types of functions for replacing views in my mainframe and such as well.. but i dont understand how to call a function from my base form without doing something stupid like calling this.Parent.Parent.SetStatusText("hello");.. is there an easy way to get a pointer or a handle onto the main form i have derived from System.Windows.Forms.Form to call its functions or get/set its variables? thanks in advance for any pointers! EDIT: just to clarify, i want to be able to call functions from anywhere in the program to set the status bar text, or to enable/disable a toolbar button, or to replace the form displayed in the background, etc.

[Jim Stewart]

Remember that everything in C# is defined in a class. So, check out the static[^] keyword. I believe that is what you want. Here[^] is another reference.

α.γεεκ

Fortune passes everywhere.
Duke Leto Atreides

[Stephane Rodriguez]

The equivalent of AfxGetApp is the .NET Application class, which holds the ApplicationContext and the MainForm. Unfortunately, the ApplicationContext member is not visible from your own code (it's protected).

[dazinith]

so is there another way to get a handle on the main form? still a newb.. cut me some slack :P -dz

[dazinith]

i guess the static variables would work for maintaining application variables, but i still dont understand how i would access the variable of that class type if it is a member variable of my main form.. basicly if i have a function which sets what is being displayed in my main form i would want to be able to call that function from another form.. still a newb.. cut me some slack :P -dz

[Stephane Rodriguez]

dazinith wrote: so is there another way to get a handle on the main form? First of all, a form handle is a different thing. All forms expose the underlying WIN32 window handle through the this.Handle property, but that's a different matter. Beside navigating the parent hierarchy (as you pointed out in your original post), the most straight forward way to let a main form method be called from a child form is to pass a this reference to it when the child form is created. Passing this passes a reference to it, not a copy.