How do I access a usercontrol instance in another usercontrol instance?

Question

I have two UserControls: Player and Playlist.

Player.cs

namespace Music_Player
{
    public partial class Player : UserControl
    {
        public int currentSongIndex = 0;
        public WindowsMediaPlayer player = new WindowsMediaPlayer();
        
        public Player()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            player.settings.autoStart = false;
        }

        private void playButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            if (playButton.Text == "Play")
            {
                Play();
            }
            else
            {
                Pause();
            }
        }

        public void Play()
        {
            if (CheckSongs()) { return; }
            playButton.Text = "Pause";
            player.controls.play();
        }
...

Playlist.cs

namespace Music_Player
{
    public partial class Playlist : UserControl
    {
        public Playlist()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void playlistTitle_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            player.Play(); // THIS IS WHERE I WANT TO USE THE player INSTANCE OF Player()
        }
...

The UserControls are both children of another UC which is in my Form.

How can I use the player which is an instance of Player() inside Playlist?

Answer 1

You probably want to handle events in the form the controls are in, not within the control itself. The form would have a reference to both controls and likely whatever they are controlling. That's where things should be connected.

Answer 2

Suppose you have added a player1 and a playList1 to the form.

To call the method in another UserControl, you can define a property in Form.cs to access the player1 instance.

public Player PlayerInstance
{
    get { return player1; }
}

Then you can call Player.Play() in Playlist.cs via the code as followed.

private void playlistTitle_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    Form1 form1 = (Form1)this.FindForm();
    form1.PlayerInstance.Play();
}