# Reference a custom property of the window where a template i

**URL:** <https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/reference-a-custom-property-of-the-window-where-a-template-i/7589>\
**Category:** Ignition\
**Created:** [November 19, 2013, 7:43pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/reference-a-custom-property-of-the-window-where-a-template-i/7589 "2013-11-19T19:43:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![phayes057](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e99b99/32.png) [@phayes057](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/phayes057)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2013, 7:43pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/reference-a-custom-property-of-the-window-where-a-template-i/7589/1 "2013-11-19T19:43:21Z")

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I am using a header template and would like to display information within that header that is contained in custom properties in the windows where the header is used. Is there a way to get to this information with an expression? Seems like I must be missing something simple here.

Thanks

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![adamaustin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f8ce5/32.png) [@adamaustin](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/adamaustin)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2013, 8:37pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/reference-a-custom-property-of-the-window-where-a-template-i/7589/2 "2013-11-19T20:37:26Z")

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You should try using a bidirectional binding to a Client tag. Whatever changes that are made in the header window will be propagated to the Client tag then you can read from that in your other windows.

![](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/original/3X/3/6/36e3a56081b99b474287d70c26faee6072e7028a.jpeg)

If you prefer, you could use system.gui.openWindow to make a connection to the header window and then use getComponent to grab the data from the other window:

```auto
winHeader = system.gui.openWindow("Header")
myComponent = winHeader.rootContainer.getComponent("myComponent")
system.gui.messageBox(myComponent.text)

#forgot to add code to get the custom property, here it is:
myCustomProp = winHeader.rootContainer.myCustomProp
system.gui.messageBox(str(myCustomProp))
```