Hi, I have a webform with a user control on it. The user control is basically a little navigation menu with some buttons on it that redirect users to a new pages. What I'm trying to do from my webform is tell the user control to change the button text color so the user knows what page he's on but I'm getting the following error :(

Object reference not set to an instance of an object

Here's the code I'm trying to do this with...


(My Webform)
    Private Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
        Dim TopNav1 As New TopNav
        TopNav1.AdminButtonColor = "#FFFFFF"
    End Sub

(My User Control)
Public Property AdminButtonColor() As String
        Get
            Return btnAdmin.Text.ToString()
        End Get
        Set(ByVal Value As String)
            btnAdmin.ForeColor = ColorTranslator.FromHtml(Value)
        End Set
 End Property

Any help would be really appreciated!!

Hi there,

There are at least two ways to fix this.

1. When you have place the control on the design / code surface of the page, there really isn't a reason to New up a new instance of the control. Just reference it by its ID in the markup and access its properties like this:

TopNav1.AdminButtonColor = "#FFFFFF"

This assumes you have a control of type TopNav with an ID of TopNav1 in your page.

2. Add a reference to the control at the top of the page near the page directive, like this:

<%@ Reference Control="TopNav.ascx" %>

or

<%@ Reference VirtualPath="~/TopNav.ascx" %>)

Then in the code behind of the page, you can now New up instances of TopNav.

Take a look here for more detailed informatioN:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/w70c655a(en-US,VS.80).aspx

HtH,

Imar
---------------------------------------
Imar Spaanjaars
Everyone is unique, except for me.
Author of ASP.NET 2.0 Instant Results and Beginning Dreamweaver MX / MX 2004

Thanks Imar that worked like a charm :) You rock!