Wondering if anyone could help?

[Eminee]

Hey, I'm new here.. just having a problem with a program I'm creating to talk to devices connected over the network. The program has to be able to send strings out of a specified ip address and port number...and it needs buttons which are customised by the user to set what they want them to do.

So basically, I used some code from the Microsoft visual basic site and tweaked it about to make it do what I wanted. It was working perfectly fine when the variables message, port and server were being defined in the button onclick subroutine.. but now I need the variables undefined so that the users input can set the values and also I need them to be public so I can use them in other forms....this is where it stopped working.

My current code:
The main form with the button that is to be customised:

Public Class frmMain
    Public message As String 'Defines message as a string

    Public server As String 'Defines server as a string
    Public port As Int32
    Private Sub cmdButton1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles cmdButton1.Click
        Try
            'Dim message As String = "Message" 'Defines message as a string

            'Dim server As String = "192.168.95.231" 'Defines server as a string
            'Dim port As Int32 = "10001"
            Dim client As New Net.Sockets.TcpClient(server, port) 'Defining variable client as a tcp client

            Dim data As [Byte]() = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(message(0)) 'Changes message into ASCII to store as a byte array, data.

            Dim stream As Net.Sockets.NetworkStream = client.GetStream() 'Defines stream as a Network stream
            MsgBox(message)

            stream.Write(data, 0, data.Length)
            'Sending the data into the stream
            'Console.WriteLine("Sent: {0}", message) 'Displays message that was sent
            ' Receive the TcpServer.response.
            ' Buffer to store the response bytes.
            data = New [Byte](256) {}

            ' String to store the response ASCII representation.
            'Dim responseData As [String] = [String].Empty


            ' Read the first batch of the TcpServer response bytes.
            'Dim bytes As Int32 = stream.Read(data, 0, data.Length)
            'responseData = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetString(data, 0, bytes)
            'Console.WriteLine("Received: {0}", responseData)

            'If responseData = "%1POWR OK" & vbCr Then
            'lblStatus.Text = "Successful"
            'ElseIf responseData = "%1POWR=ERR1" & vbCr Then
            'lblStatus.Text = "Out of parameter"
            'End If

            ' Close everything.
            stream.Close()
            client.Close()
        Catch f As ArgumentNullException
            Console.WriteLine("ArgumentNullException: {0}", f)
        Catch f As System.Net.Sockets.SocketException
            Console.WriteLine("SocketException: {0}", f)
        End Try
        MsgBox(server)
        MsgBox(port)


        'Console.WriteLine(ControlChars.Cr + " Press Enter to continue...")
        ' Console.Read()
    End Sub

    Private Sub cmdCustomise_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles cmdCustomise.Click
        Me.Visible = False
        frmCustomise.Visible = True
    End Sub
End Class

And the button customisation screen:

Public Class frmCustomise
    Public message As String 'Defines message as a string

    Public server As String 'Defines server as a string
    Public port As Int32

    Private Sub cmdSetButton1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles cmdSetButton1.Click
        Dim MyVariable As String
        If radType.Checked = True Then
            frmMain.message = (comB11.Text + comB12.Text + ComB13.Text + comB14.Text + comB15.Text + comB16.Text + comB17.Text + comB18.Text + comB19.Text)
            frmMain.cmdButton1.Text = txtCommandTitle.Text
        Else
            MyVariable = comButton1.Text
            If MyVariable = "On" Then
                frmMain.cmdButton1.Text = MyVariable
                frmMain.message = "%1POWR 1" & vbCr
            Else
                frmMain.cmdButton1.Text = MyVariable
                frmMain.message = "%1POWR 0" & vbCr
            End If
        End If

        If txtPort.Text = "" Then
            MsgBox("Please enter a port number")
        ElseIf txtServer.Text = "" Then
            MsgBox("Please enter an IP address")
        Else
            frmMain.port = txtPort.Text
            frmMain.server = txtServer.Text
        End If
        Me.Visible = False
        frmMain.Visible = True
        'MsgBox(frmMain.message(0))
        'MsgBox(frmMain.port)
        'MsgBox(frmMain.server)
    End Sub

    Private Sub RadioButton1_CheckedChanged(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles radType.CheckedChanged
        comB11.Enabled = True
        comB12.Enabled = True
        ComB13.Enabled = True
        comB14.Enabled = True
        comB15.Enabled = True
        comB16.Enabled = True
        comB17.Enabled = True
        comB18.Enabled = True
        comB19.Enabled = True
        txtCommandtitle.Enabled = True
        lblType.Enabled = True
        lblTitle.Enabled = True
        comButton1.Enabled = False
    End Sub

    Private Sub RadioButton2_CheckedChanged(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles radChoose.CheckedChanged
        comB11.Enabled = False
        comB12.Enabled = False
        ComB13.Enabled = False
        comB14.Enabled = False
        comB15.Enabled = False
        comB16.Enabled = False
        comB17.Enabled = False
        comB18.Enabled = False
        comB19.Enabled = False
        txtCommandtitle.Enabled = False
        lblType.Enabled = False
        lblTitle.Enabled = False
        comButton1.Enabled = True
    End Sub

No doubt I have other errors, but I'd like to try and sort out sending the strings right now so any help would be great
Thanks
Emily

[Atheist]

You say that it 'stopped' working. How isnt it working anymore? Are you getting any errors?

[Shaggy Hiker]

I would suggest a change in the general design, but feel free to disregard. My thinking is that you really want to be communicating based on data coming from various places. It makes plenty of sense to have all of the communication in a single class with variables that are set by outside, but does it really make sense to have this class be a form? It's certainly convenient, but I would guess that you will end up with a more extensible solution if you move all your TCP code out of the form into a class.

Then the port and other member variables could be exposed via properties, and there could be a SendMessage method that would accept a string and send stuff off.

The real advantage to this is that once you got the class working once, you wouldn't be tied to that form, but could instantiate the class anywhere you wanted to, though it sounds alot like you would only want a single instance of this class in any program, so there would be a reason to make this a Singleton class (private constructor with a single shared public instance member).

Other than that, tell us about the errors.