I'm not sure if this is the best way to do it, probably not, but you could within the user control set a property of the usercontol itself with the txtname property. So basically set up an assign method so that when the txtname.text is set it sets tabcontrol.newproperty with its value. You should be able to access the tabcontrol properties.

Let me know how you get on with Michel's solution it looks much better than mine and I'll implement it in my system if it allows you to do what you want.

Jon


>Hello Jon, thanks for your reply, that is no help to me as I need to access the controls that are contained in the UC, e.g. (from my main form) this.usercontrol.tabcontrol.page1.txtname.text = "Whatever", maybe UC's aren't meant to be used this way
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>thanks