difficullty creating an instance of Type at Run-Time using Activator.Create

See more:

C#3.0

C#

C#4.0

forms

VS2012

Consider a WinForms project, that defines several Forms; in the Main Form which is launched at run-time is a drop-down containing the names of Forms which have not had an instance created ... yet.

So the drop-down may contain a selection list something like:

TemplateForm1
TemplateForm2
TemplateForm3

At run-time:

1. with Main Form and drop-down visible:

2. The user selects an item from the drop-down. So: now you have a string, containing a name of an object (the Form), like "TemplateForm3."

3. Now you want to create an instance of "TemplateForm3." And, be assured: "TemplateForm3" is the name of a Form that exists in the current Project.

Seems like in the past this type of code used to work for me

var frmType = Activator.CreateInstance(Type.GetType("TemplateForm3"));

But, right now I just get a null exception.

I wonder if I have forgotten some requirement involving either required Reflection on the current assembly here (?), or some other required form of using Activator.CreateInstance and/or some variation on usage of GetType ?

I'd certainly prefer not to use Reflection here.

And, yes, it would be easy to write a switch/case statement, using the string from the drop-down selection to create new instances in the usual way, but I don' wanna :)

Appreciate your help !

thanks, Bill