# How to uniquely identify a view in verifyView

**URL:** <https://forums.steinberg.net/t/how-to-uniquely-identify-a-view-in-verifyview/1012156>\
**Category:** VSTGUI\
**Created:** [October 23, 2025, 5:55am UTC](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/how-to-uniquely-identify-a-view-in-verifyview/1012156 "2025-10-23T05:55:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![rustyshelf](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/user_avatar/forums.steinberg.net/rustyshelf/32/357184_2.png) [@rustyshelf](https://forums.steinberg.net/u/rustyshelf)\
**Post date:** [October 23, 2025, 5:55am UTC](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/how-to-uniquely-identify-a-view-in-verifyview/1012156/1 "2025-10-23T05:55:44Z")

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I am in the final stages of building a VST3 plugin, and I must say I’ve been very impressed with the API and with VSTGUI. One thing I’m not sure about though is I have a settings page that has some CTextLabels on it and I want to have a reference to them in my controller so I can update them on load, and when the user takes certain actions. My UI is created through the .uidesc file.

I originally gave them all unique tags and differentiated them that way, which worked on macOS, but seemed to crash on Windows. I assume maybe because the tags weren’t actual parameters, just numbers I was setting. So I’ve resorted to temporarily giving them all unique titles which I can look for in verifyView but that feels very fragile, because every time I save the view from the GUI editor, I’m going to end up with all those title’s replaced with whatever is currently in the labels.

There must be a better way to do this I’m missing? Eg: how do I uniquely identify a view in verifyView?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Arne\_Scheffler](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/user_avatar/forums.steinberg.net/arne_scheffler/32/92023_2.png) [@Arne\_Scheffler](https://forums.steinberg.net/u/Arne_Scheffler)\
**Post date:** [October 23, 2025, 6:18am UTC](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/how-to-uniquely-identify-a-view-in-verifyview/1012156/2 "2025-10-23T06:18:52Z")

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One possible way is to give the controls a `custom-view-name` and then you can check for it in verifyView:

```auto
//------------------------------------------------------------------------
CView* MyController::verifyView (CView* view, const UIAttributes& attributes, const IUIDescription* description)
{
	if (const auto attr = attributes.getAttributeValue (IUIDescription::kCustomViewName))
	{
		if (*attr == "TextLabel1")
		{
			//
		}
	}
	return view;
}

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rustyshelf](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/user_avatar/forums.steinberg.net/rustyshelf/32/357184_2.png) [@rustyshelf](https://forums.steinberg.net/u/rustyshelf)\
**Post date:** [October 23, 2025, 6:33am UTC](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/how-to-uniquely-identify-a-view-in-verifyview/1012156/3 "2025-10-23T06:33:15Z")

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That works. I had assumed setting that field would attempt to load some kind of custom view by name, which is why I avoided it.