Question

I am wondering whether it is a good idea to make labels public so other classes can change them and get their value. Is this a good idea? If not, how should it be done then?

Answer 1

I wouldn’t make the label public.

It would be better to add a public method that was specific to what the label was displaying, and have it update the label.

For example, if your label was a “System status” label, you might want to add (to your Form/UserControl):

public void SetStatusInformation(string currentStatus)
{
     this.statusLabel.Text = currentStatus;
}

This allows you, later, to change how this information is displayed (in case you want to use a different control), and also simplifies your API, since the public methods are very clear to the user.