I'm not sure how to ask this question, but basically what I have is multiple user controls on a page that all interact with each other. What is the sequence of events that occurs when instantiating controls on a page (i.e., when can the page get access to custom properties on a control) and how do I get the controls to 'see' each other? Right now, I'm declaring the control as protected with the other controls, but when I step through the code, they come back as Nothing. Do I need to pull the info I need in a different page event?

first,what you said is bad code function.
we should not write code like this because it is not oo method.
any way , we can use this code.

this.Page.findcontrol("control1")

I might not have been clear in what I was asking... Say for example that one of the user controls on the page sets and stores values that are needed either on the page itself, or in another control. If you try to retrieve those values during the Page_Load of the page, the control is set to Nothing, so I can't get anything from it until, say, the PreRender event.

If I have one control setting/storing values, and another using those values to perform an action, should they both bet placed in a 3rd user control that is then placed on the page, and the PreRender event used there for the code logic?