in upgrading from vb6 to vs2005 user controls are introducing a circular reference problem in the following way.

In the vb6 solution, user controls could access methods in the 'Main Form' upon which the user controls are used.

In VS2005, I create a separate Windows Control Library Project for each User Control. For composite controls I 'reference' any other controls as needed.

However, there are controls which call methods/functions on the 'Main form' within a Windows Application project. That project includes the references to all the user controls ( which show up in the ToolBox.) Circular references have been introduced which didn't exist before. The Mainform references the User Control. The User Control calls MainForm methods.

The functions which are being called on the Main form contain references to controls on the mainform so I can't simply remove all those functions without affecting the app.

Anyone been there Have any ideas

Thank you. -Greg

Thank you so much. Greatly appreciated.

What I had to do to build/test the user controls was to create a separate control library project.
But the control really doesn't have to go into the toolbox; so no need to compile a separate dll.
I added the control programmatically here;

Public Class Form1
Public ctrl_TrackControl As TrackControl
Private Sub Form1_Load(xxxx) Handles Me.Load
ctrl_TrackControl = New TrackControl
ctrl_TrackControl.Visible = True
Me.Controls.Add(Me.ctrl_TrackControl)
End Sub
End Class

I am really interested in the code cleanup approach.
What do you mean by letting the controls communicate with the form through events.
I'm trying to think about/understand that at a high level.
I'm thinking of some general notion of decoupling the direct calls to the main form by registering an event on the control and registering that event/handler on the Main Form
Thanks, -Greg

In your control, declare something like:

Public Event MyEvent(sender as object, e as eventargs)

Then, when you want to communicate with the form, raise the event as follows:

RaiseEvent MyEvent(Me, EventArgs.Empty)

On the form, you can handle this event:

Public Sub HandlesMyEvent(sender as Object, e as EventArgs) Handles MyControl.MyEvent
'Code on the form to handle the event
End Sub

This way, the control doesn't need to know anything specific about the form, and doesn't need to reference the project that the form is in.

Thank you Scott.

What if I have a function on the Mainform I am calling from the control (with the current codebase)

-greg

In the control, you would have code like this:

Public Event DataChanged(sender as object, e as EventArgs)

Private Sub Something() ' Some routine in your control
RaiseEvent DataChanged(me, EventArgs.Empty)
End Sub

Then, In your form you have something like

Private Sub MyControl_DataChanged(sender as Object, e as EventArgs) Handles MyControl.DataChanged
me.RedrawGraphics(TYPE_3D)
End Sub