User control property not visible when accessed from outside in WinForms

Question

Situation

• I have a WinForm Form1 with two User Controls (called startControl and resultsControl) added
• My resultsControl has a DataGridView called dataGridView1 which has been added by the Designer
• My startControl has a DataTable called dt

Goal

• Bind the DataTable from startControl to my DataGridView in resultsControl

What I've tried is to expose my dataGridView1 from resultsControl as a property and access it's DataSource in startControl but for some reason the exposed property isn't visible to me in neither Form1 nor startControl.

Code

public partial class resultsControl : UserControl
{
    public resultsControl()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
    }

    [PropertyTab("Data"), Description("Test"), Category("Misc"), Browsable(true)]
    public DataGridView dgvParameter
    {
        get
        {
            return this.dataGridView1;
        }
        set
        {
            this.dataGridView1 = value;
        }
    }
}

I can't seem to access my dataGridView1 by using resultsControl.dgvParameter - what am I doing wrong?

EDIT

As pointed out I need to work with an instance of resultsControl. I already created an instance of resultsControl in my Form1 - that means I just need to access it from my startControl user control, right?

My first guess would've been to expose another property in Form1 or is there another way to access it from my (parent) form?

Code

public partial class homeForm : Form
    {
        public homeForm()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void btnDashStart_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            startControl control = new startControl();
            ShowControl(control);
        }

        private void btnDashResults_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            resultsControl control = new resultsControl();

            ShowControl(control);
        }

        public void ShowControl (Control control)
        {
            containerPanel.Controls.Clear();

            control.Dock = DockStyle.Fill;
            control.BringToFront();
            control.Focus();
            containerPanel.Controls.Add(control); 
        }
}

Answer 1

You need to use the instance of resultsControl because your dgvParameter is not a static property.

Go into the designer view and click on your control. In the "Properties" window, look at the 'Name' property. That's the name of your instance, e.g. resultsControl1. Now you can use resultsControl1.dgvParameter in your code.

By the way, you should adhere to naming conventions, i.e. properties and classes should be named using UpperCamelCase.