One way of passing data to a thread is to encapsulate the thread inside a
class. However, I can't refer to my main form objects from within the
class/thread as it says "Reference to a non-shared member requires an Object
reference".

How do I refer to items such as Textbox1.text etc on my main form?

-Jerry

Don't quote me, but I don't think it's good practice to refer to specific
components on a form from a thread.  It couples the thread class and the
form too closely together.  The best way I've found to do this is to store a
reference to an instance of the form in the thread class and then whenever
you want to signal to the main form to do something, "Invoke" a delegate on
the form.  As an example of what this might look like below.  We are
basically marshalling a call from the calling thread onto the form thread to
execute some function, passing in parameters.  This function can contain
code to make modifications to your forms and/or the controls on them.  I
usually have delegates for signalling error conditions, success, failure,
starting and ending an operation, but it all depends on what you are doing
with it.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/zyzhdc6b.aspx





' Declare one or more delegates

Private Delegate Sub DoSomething_Delegate(...)

' Store a reference to an instance of the form you want to signal

Private m_Form as MainForm
......
......

' At some moment in the thread, invoke to the form.

Invoke_DoSomething (...)
.....
.....


' Invoke to the form, passing parameters (if required), via. a delegate.

Public Sub Invoke_DoSomething (...)

    Dim Parameters(...) As Object

    Parameters(0) = ...
    Parameters(1) = ...
    Parameters(2) = ...
    Parameters(3) = ...

    ....

    Try

        m_Form.Invoke(New DoSomething_Delegate(AddressOf
m_Form.DoSomething_Invoked), Parameters)

    Catch ex As Exception

        ' Something went titsup.

    End Try

End Sub



' Create a method on the form called "DoSomething_Invoked"

Public Sub DoSomething_Invoked(....)

    ....
    ....Modify controls etc.
    ....

End Sub


Show quoteHide quote

Actually, this is a nice, useful explaination of why/what we are doing with
invocation.....:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnforms/html/winforms06112002.asp





Show quoteHide quote

DataView RowFiltering
Saving a JPG from the web to local disk
How to serialize into a string ?
.NET Remoting
Access locking and transactions
Confusion over namespaces
String Name to a User Control?
locate a desired row
Conversion of PNG to HTML Files
how to pull/query data from 2 Databases into 1 table using .Net?