Question

I have two projects : Menu and Module and they are both in the same namespace foobar.

I am currently referencing the module project from the Menu project to open up certain controls on a tab control in my menu. However I need to launch a new control from one of my controls which is located in the Module project.

When I try referencing the menu project, it does not show up in my intellisense when I try to reference it with a using. Am I doing something wrong logically here?

Here is an example of what it is :

Project Menu

Public Void LaunchWPFControl(string pHeader,string pPath)
{
     //Code goes here to launch a WPF control in the browser
}

Project Module

//What I would love to do but doesn't work
Using Menu;
...
...
...
private void dgModule_MouseDoubleClick(object sender, MouseButtonEventArgs e)
{
     Menu.LaunchWPFControl("Accounts","AccountsControl");
}

Answer 1

If you are talking about seperate projects then what you are trying to do here is a circular reference, this is not allowed. If Project Menu references Project Module, then Project Module cannot reference Project Menu.

If you need a class in Project Module to trigger something in the Menu project you need to look for an alternative way of doing it. One possible technique for achieving this is to create an event in the class in the Module project that the Menu project can subscribe to and perform the required action.

For example in Project Module:

private void dgModule_MouseDoubleClick(object sender, MouseButtonEventArgs e)
{
    OnMyEvent();
}

private void OnMyEvent()
{
    EventHandler localEvent = MyEvent;
    if(localEvent != null)
    {
        localEvent(this, EventArgs.Empty);
    } 
} 

Then in Project Menu you can subscribe to this event and perform your action:

...
...
...
moduleClass.MyEvent += SomeHandler;
...
...
...
private void SomeHandler(Object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    Menu.LaunchWPFControl("Accounts","AccountsControl");
}    

As Ray Burns mentions (see comments) another way would be to define an interface of the Menu class in some shared location (either there referenced project, or some other shared project) and than you can pass implementations of that interface to the Module project.

Which way is better often depends on the abstraction you are trying to achieve with each project.