I'm trying to use threads and prevent the program from freezing while the thread is busy. It should show the progress (writing of 0's / 1's) and not just show the result after its done, freezing the form in the meanwhile.
In the current program I'm trying to write to a textbox, and actually see constant progress, and the form can't be affected by the tasks of the other thread.
What I have now is I can write to a textbox with a thread using invoke, but It only shows the result (Form freezes while thread is busy), and the form freezes.
Form image:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Threading;
namespace MultiThreading
{
public partial class MultiThreading : Form
{
public MultiThreading()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
Thread writeOne, writeTwo;
private void writeText(TextBox textBox, string text)
{
if (textBox.InvokeRequired)
{
textBox.BeginInvoke((MethodInvoker)delegate()
{
for (int i = 0; i < 500; i++)
{
textBox.Text += text;
}
});
}
else
{
for (int i = 0; i < 500; i++)
{
textBox.Text += text;
}
}
}
private void btnWrite1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
writeOne = new Thread(() => writeText(txtOutput1, "0"));
writeOne.Start();
}
private void btnWrite2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
writeTwo = new Thread(() => writeText(txtOutput2, "1"));
writeTwo.Start();
}
private void btnClear1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
txtOutput1.Clear();
}
private void btnClear2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
txtOutput2.Clear();
}
private void btnWriteBoth_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
writeOne = new Thread(() => writeText(txtOutput1, "0"));
writeTwo = new Thread(() => writeText(txtOutput2, "1"));
writeOne.Start();
writeTwo.Start();
}
private void btnClearBoth_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
txtOutput1.Clear();
txtOutput2.Clear();
}
}
}
EDIT:
Btw for anyone wondering, I'm new to multithreading and I'm just trying to write a small program to understand the best way to do this.
I understand that my previous invoke didn't realy help because I still wasn't giving the form a chance to update, so its getting there.
Ok so running 1 thread like this works, but still running multiple threads together, won't update the form till after the thread is done.
I've added a thread.sleep() so I can try and clear while writing, to see if I can still use the form.
When writing to 1 textbox I can still clear the screen while writing.
But once I use 2 threads, I can't use the form anymore till the thread completes, and gives the output.
private void writeText(TextBox textBox, string text)
{
for (int i = 0; i < 500; i++)
{
Invoke(new MethodInvoker(() =>
{
textBox.Text += text;
Thread.Sleep(2);
}));
}
}
(If I'm totally wrong on this I don't mind having to read through some examples/threads, I'm still trying to see what is the best way to do this, besides a backgroundworker)
EDIT 2:
I've reduced the number of invokes by reducing the amount to write, but to increase delay giving the same effect of constant writing, just reducing the load.
private void writeText(TextBox textBox, string text)
{
for (int i = 0; i < 500; i++)
{
Invoke(new MethodInvoker(() =>
{
textBox.Text += text;
Thread.Sleep(2);
}));
}
}
EDIT 3:
Sumeet's example works using
Application.DoEvents();
(notice the s, .DoEvent doesn't work, typo probably :P), writing multiple strings simultaneously & having them show the progress and not just the result.
So Code update again :)
*Using a new button to create 5 threads that write a random number to both textboxes
private void writeText(TextBox textBox, string text)
{
for (int i = 0; i < 57; i++)
{
Invoke(new MethodInvoker(() =>
{
textBox.Text += text;
Thread.Sleep(5);
Application.DoEvents();
}));
}
}
private void btnNewThread_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Random random = new Random();
int[] randomNumber = new int[5];
for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++)
{
randomNumber[i] = random.Next(2, 9);
new Thread(() => writeText(txtOutput1, randomNumber[i-1].ToString())).Start();
new Thread(() => writeText(txtOutput2, randomNumber[i-1].ToString())).Start();
}
}
This solution works ! Have checked it.
The problem is you keep telling the UI thread to change the Text, but never letting it have time to show you the updated text.
To make your UI show the changed text, add the Application.DoEvents line like this :
textBox.Text += text;
Application.DoEvents();
p.s. : Remove the else block of your If / Else loop, it is redundant, and also as pointed by others there is not any use of creating those 2 Threads as all they are doing is post the message on the UI Thread itself.
You're still performing a single-threaded task, just re-launching it on the UI thread if needed.
for (int i = 0; i < 500; i++){
string text = ""+i;
textBox.BeginInvoke((MethodInvoker)delegate()
{
textBox.Text += text;
});
}
The problem is that you're starting a new thread, and then that new thread is doing nothing except adding one new task for the UI thread to process that does a lot of work. To keep your form responsive you need to have time where the UI thread is doing nothing, or at least not spending a significant amount of time doing any one task.
To keep the form responsive we need to have lots of little BeginInvoke (or Invoke) calls.
private void writeText(TextBox textBox, string text)
{
for (int i = 0; i < 500; i++)
{
Invoke(new MethodInvoker(() =>
{
textBox.Text += text;
}));
}
}
By having lots of little invoke calls it allows things like paint events, mouse move/click events, etc. to be handled in the middle of your operations. Also note that I removed the InvokeRequired call. We know that this method will be called from a non-UI thread, so there's no need for it.
You're defeating the purpose of using threads.
All your thread does is tell the UI thread to execute some code using BeginInvoke().
All of the actual work happens on the UI thread.
Either you're doing data processing or you're just trying to animate the UI.
For data processing you should do all the heavy lifting on a background thread and only update the UI occasionally. In your example a TextBox is particularly troublesome in this regard, as you're adding data to the underlying data model several hundred times and the UI element (a TextBox) takes longer to render each time. You must be careful about how often to update the UI so that processing for UI updates does not overwhelm data model updates. TextBoxes are nasty like that.
In the example below, a flag set during the paint event ensures that additional UI updates aren't queued until the TextBox has finished painting the last update:
string str = string.Empty;
public void DoStuff()
{
System.Threading.ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(WorkerThread);
}
void WorkerThread(object unused)
{
for (int i = 0; i < 1000; i++)
{
str += "0";
if (updatedUI)
{
updatedUI = false;
BeginInvoke(new Action<string>(UpdateUI), str);
}
}
BeginInvoke(new Action<string>(UpdateUI), str);
}
private volatile bool updatedUI = true;
void textbox1_Paint(object sender, PaintEventArgs e) // event hooked up in Form constructor
{
updatedUI = true;
}
void UpdateUI(string str)
{
textBox1.Text = str;
}
On the other hand if UI animation is your goal then you probably ought to be using something other than a TextBox. It's just not designed to handle updates so frequently. There might be some optimizations to text rendering you could make for your specific use case.
You must never use a string in high volume applications. UI or not. Multi-threading or not.
You should use StringBuilder to accumulate the string. and then assign
tb.Text = sb.ToString();
Related
Here's my situation:
I have a WPF application, where I have a method which takes a lot of time to be completed. I don't want to lose UI responsiveness, so I'd like to call that method in another thread.
I won't paste here my entire code, because it's too long, instead I wrote this short program, which represents well what I'm dealing with:
public void MainWindow()
{
InitializeComponent();
ProcessThread = new Thread(TimeConsumingMethod);
ProcessThread.Name = "ProcessThread";
ProcessThread.Start();
}
public void TimeConsumingMethod()
{
this.Dispatcher.Invoke(() =>
{
MytextBlock.Text = "new text";
MyOtherTextBlock.Text = "Hello";
});
for (int i = 0; i < 50; i++)
{
Debug.WriteLine("Debug line " + i);
}
if (MyRadioButton.IsChecked == false) //????????????????
{
while (true)
{
if (DateTime.Now >= timePicker.Value)
break;
}
}
OtherMethod();
}
Actually, I have two questions for the above code:
1. Everytime I want to access UI controls in my code I have to use this.Dispatcher.Invoke() =>.... Is it the right thing to do? I mean, I have a few places in my method (in my real code) where I check the state of some controls and everytime I need to do his Dispatcher.invoke thing - isn't there a better way to acces these controls?
2. In the code above, there's IF block in the end - in that block I'm checking the state of my RadioButton. Inside of that IF, I have a time consuming code. I cannot just do this:
this.Dispatcher.Invoke(() =>
{
if (MyRadioButton.IsChecked == false) //????????????????
{
while (true)
{
if (DateTime.Now >= timePicker.Value)
break;
}
}
});
That code would tell my UI thread to handle this if block - but I don't want that! That would cause the whole UI to freeze until this IF block gets done. How should I handle this situation?
Well, there are a lot of ways to implement what you are trying to do. One of them might look like this:
public MainWindow() {
InitializeComponent();
Initialize(); //do some intialization
}
private async void Timer_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e) {
if (DateTime.Now >= timePicker.SelectedDate) { //check your condition
timer.Stop(); //probably you need to run it just once
await Task.Run(() => OtherMethod()); //instead of creating thread manually use Thread from ThreadPool
//use async method to avoid blocking UI during long method is running
}
}
private readonly DispatcherTimer timer = new DispatcherTimer(); //create a dispatcher timer that will execute code on UI thread
public void Initialize() {
MytextBlock.Text = "new text";
MyOtherTextBlock.Text = "Hello"; //access UI elements normally
for (var i = 0; i < 50; i++) {
Debug.WriteLine("Debug line " + i);
}
if (MyRadioButton.IsChecked == false)
{
timer.Interval = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10); // during init setup timer instead of while loop
timer.IsEnabled = true;
timer.Tick += Timer_Tick; //when 10 sec pass, this method is called
timer.Start();
}
}
public void OtherMethod() {
//long running method
Thread.Sleep(1000);
}
I've added some comments, but the main idea is this:
Don't create threads manually, use ThreadPool
Don't loop to wait for something, use timer to periodically check for it
Use async method when you have I/O Tasks
I have some controls on the form of the Windows Forms application and I need to update its' texts at run-time from several threads.
Is it safe to just call BeginInvoke method like this:
BeginInvoke((MethodInvoker)delegate()
{
this.label.Text = "Some text";
});
from several threads at the same time? Should I do any additional synchronization in this case? Will it be processed by the same thread one by one and is this order guaranteed?
Thanks in advance.
Calling BeginInvoke puts the delegate on to the message queue to be processed by the UI thread, it will process the queue handling the messages one by one. So no, you do not need to do any additional synchronization (as long as the delegate is not accessing any resources that can't be accessed from the UI thread).
As for order, it is not guaranteed they will be processed in order but in practice most of the time the delegates will be processed in the order they where put in to the queue.
To address the question in the comments, instead of using multiple BeginInvoke calls you should be able to get away with just one.
You never really explained what your animation was so I am going to assume it is going to be that this.label will swap between ., .. and ... then you store the result text in this.label when you are done.
public partial class Form1 : Form
{
public Form1()
{
InitializeComponent();
animationTimer = new System.Windows.Forms.Timer();
animationTimer.Interval = 500;
animationTimer.Tick += animationTimer_Tick;
}
private System.Windows.Forms.Timer animationTimer;
private int dots = 0;
void animationTimer_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
//Make 1, 2, or 3 dots show up. This runs on the UI thread so we don't need to invoke.
this.label.Text = new String('.', dots + 1);
//Add one then reset to 0 if we reach 3.
dots += 1;
dots = dots % 3;
}
private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
animationTimer.Start();
Task.Run(() => DoSomeSlowCalcuation());
}
private void DoSomeSlowCalcuation()
{
Thread.Sleep(5000);
this.BeginInvoke((MethodInvoker)delegate()
{
//We stop the timer before we set the text so the timer will not overwrite it.
animationTimer.Stop();
this.label.Text = "Some text";
});
}
}
This code is just a example to get my point across, if I where doing this I would use async/await for the button click and not use BeginInvoke at all.
private async void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
animationTimer.Start();
var result = await Task.Run(() => DoSomeSlowCalcuation());
animationTimer.Stop();
this.label.Text = result;
}
private string DoSomeSlowCalcuation()
{
Thread.Sleep(5000);
return "Some text";
}
I try to perform an easy task in an other backgroundthread, so the UI doesn't get blocked, but it still gets blocked. Did I forget anything?
public partial class backgroundWorkerForm : Form
{
public backgroundWorkerForm()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
private void doWorkButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (backgroundWorker.IsBusy != true)
{
// Start the asynchronous operation.
backgroundWorker.RunWorkerAsync();
}
}
private void backgroundWorker_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
//BackgroundWorker worker = sender as BackgroundWorker;
if (textBoxOutput.InvokeRequired)
{
textBoxOutput.Invoke(new MethodInvoker(delegate
{
for (int i = 0; i < 10000; i++)
{
textBoxOutput.AppendText(i + Environment.NewLine);
}
}));
}
}
}
While the textBox gets filled, the UI is blocked:
Your app wants to repeatedly send updates from the background thread to the UI. There is a built-in mechanism for this: the ProgressChanged event for the background worker. A ReportProgress call is triggered in the background, but executes on the UI thread.
I do change one thing, however. Performance can degrade with too many cross-thread calls. So instead of sending an update every iteration, I instead will batch them into 100.
private void backgroundWorker1_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
const int maxIterations = 10000;
var progressLimit = 100;
var staging = new List<int>();
for (int i = 0; i < maxIterations; i++)
{
staging.Add(i);
if (staging.Count % progressLimit == 0)
{
// Only send a COPY of the staging list because we
// may continue to modify staging inside this loop.
// There are many ways to do this. Below is just one way.
backgroundWorker1.ReportProgress(staging.Count, staging.ToArray());
staging.Clear();
}
}
// Flush last bit in staging.
if (staging.Count > 0)
{
// We are done with staging here so we can pass it as is.
backgroundWorker1.ReportProgress(staging.Count, staging);
}
}
// The ProgressChanged event is triggered in the background thread
// but actually executes in the UI thread.
private void backgroundWorker1_ProgressChanged(object sender, ProgressChangedEventArgs e)
{
if (e.ProgressPercentage == 0) return;
// We don't care if an array or a list was passed.
var updatedIndices = e.UserState as IEnumerable<int>;
var sb = new StringBuilder();
foreach (var index in updatedIndices)
{
sb.Append(index.ToString() + Environment.NewLine);
}
textBoxOutput.Text += sb.ToString();
}
EDIT:
This requires you set the background worker's WorkerReportsProgress property to true.
It's not important that you pass a count with the ReportProgress call. I do so just to have something and to quickly check if I can return.
One really should keep in mind about how many events are being invoked and queued up. Your original app had 10,000 cross thread invocations and 10,000 changed text events for textBoxOutput. My example uses 100 cross thread calls since I use a page size of 100. I could still have generated 10,000 changed text events for the textbox, but instead use a StringBuilder object to hold a full page of changes and then update the textbox once for that page. That way the textbox only has 100 update events.
EDIT 2
Whether or not your app needs paging is not the main deal. The biggest take away should be that the background worker really should use ReportProgress when trying to communicate info back to the UI. See this MSDN Link. Of particular note is this:
You must be careful not to manipulate any user-interface objects in
your DoWork event handler. Instead, communicate to the user interface
through the ProgressChanged and RunWorkerCompleted events.
Your invocation code should be outside the loop. Everything in the invoked codeblock, will be executed on the UI thread, thus blocking it.
private void backgroundWorker_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
//BackgroundWorker worker = sender as BackgroundWorker;
for (int i = 0; i < 10000; i++)
{
// do long-running task
//if (textBoxOutput.InvokeRequired)
//{
textBoxOutput.Invoke(new MethodInvoker(delegate
{
textBoxOutput.AppendText(i + Environment.NewLine);
}));
//}
}
}
an easier way would be to do completely create your output text, and then paste the full output into the TextBox, then you only need one invocation
protected delegate void SetTextDelegate(TextBox tb, string Text);
protected void SetText(TextBox tb, string Text)
{
if (tb.InvokeRequired) {
tb.Invoke(new SetTextDelegate(SetText), tb, Text);
return;
}
tb.Text = Text;
}
and then inside your dowork
private void backgroundWorker_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
//BackgroundWorker worker = sender as BackgroundWorker;
for (int i = 0; i < 10000; i++)
{
sb.AppendLine(i.ToString());
}
SetText(textBoxOutput, sb.ToString());
}
We are learning multi-threadding today in class and we came across a very curious error. When doing a for loop in our new thread the upper bound of the for loop keeps getting passed. The thread is being killed but then another value will appear and end another thread.
For the purpose of debugging the error I changed the upper bound to 90 to avoid the OutOfRange Exception on the progressbar.
While outputting the counter to the progressing bar and updating the progress bar I got this in my output window.
If i commented out the updating on the progress bar (pbLoad.Value = i;) I got this in my output window
I have tried changing the loop to i<101 and also tried moving where the i++ was but it made no difference
EDIT: This is coming from the BeginInvoke. When i switched it to Invoke it worked but then I will get a deadlock when trying to use the cancel button.
Here is the code:
public partial class Form1 : Form
{
Thread backgroundThread;
bool stopExecution = false;
public Form1()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
private void btnStart_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
stopExecution = false;
btnStart.Enabled = false;
backgroundThread = new Thread(DoDomethingThatTakesAWhile);
backgroundThread.Start();
}
private void DoDomethingThatTakesAWhile()
{
for (int i = 0; i <= 100; i++)
{
if (!stopExecution)
{
Thread.Sleep(100);
if (pbLoad.InvokeRequired)
{
MethodInvoker myMethod
= new MethodInvoker(
delegate
{
if (!stopExecution)
{
pbLoad.Value = i;
Debug.WriteLine(i); //i to output window
}
});
pbLoad.BeginInvoke(myMethod);
}
else
{
pbLoad.Value = i;
}
}
else
{
break;
}
}
}
private void btnCancel_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
//backgroundThread.Abort();
stopExecution = true;
backgroundThread.Join();
pbLoad.Value = 0;
btnStart.Enabled = true;
}
}
When you call MethodInvoke it will not occurs at that moment, but some time later.
In your scenario you have a chance of following to occurs:
invoked code is finally executed;
the loop is already finished (and i become 101)
you are accessing i directly and you read 101.
And to fix it you can make a copy of i (by passing it as a parameter to invoked method):
pbLoad.BeginInvoke(new Action<int>(a =>
{
if (!stopExecution)
{
pbLoad.Value = a;
Debug.WriteLine(a); //a to output window
}
}), new object[] { i });
P.S: you don't need to check for InvokeRequired, unless you plan to call DoDomethingThatTakesAWhile method directly, which I assume is not the case.
You're using BeginInvoke which explicitly opens the possibility for races. I recommend synchronous invoking.
Furthermore, you are capturing i, not its value. This is racy and only works by accident because you're sleeping.
Either of the changes will fix the problem. Do both of them.
If you can, abolish this low-level use of synchronization and use async/await.
I have a c# application that uses a background worker thread, and quite successfully updates the UI from the running thread. The application involves shortest path routing on a network, and I display the network and the shortest path, on the UI, as the background worker proceeds. I would like to allow the user to slow down the display through use of a slider, while the application is running.
I found this as a suggestion, but it is in vb.net, I am not clear on how to get it to work in c#.
How can the BackgroundWorker get values from the UI thread while it is running?
I can pass the value of the slider to the backgroundworker as follows:
// Start the asynchronous operation.
delay = this.trackBar1.Value;
backgroundWorker1.RunWorkerAsync(delay);
and use it within the backgroundworker thread, but it only uses the initially-sent value. I am not clear on how to pick up the value from inside the backgroundworker when I move the slider on the UI.
I have previously used multiple threads and delegates, but if it is possible to utilize the background worker, I would prefer it for its simplicity.
5/10/2012
Thanks to all for your responses. I am still having problems, most likely because of how I have structured things. The heavy duty calculations for network routing are done in the TransportationDelayModel class. BackgroundWorker_DoWork creates an instance of this class, and then kicks it off. The delay is handled in TransportationDelayModel.
The skeleton of code is as follows:
In UI:
private void runToolStripMenuItem1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (sqliteFileName.Equals("Not Set"))
{
MessageBox.Show("Database Name Not Set");
this.chooseDatabaseToolStripMenuItem_Click(sender, e);
}
if (backgroundWorker1.IsBusy != true)
{
// Start the asynchronous operation.
delay = this.trackBar1.Value;
// pass the initial value of delay
backgroundWorker1.RunWorkerAsync(delay);
// preclude multiple runs
runToolStripMenuItem1.Enabled = false;
toolStripButton2.Enabled = false;
}
}
private void backgroundWorker1_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
BackgroundWorker worker = sender as BackgroundWorker;
if (!backgroundWorkerLaunched)
{
// instantiate the object that does all the heavy work
TransportationDelayModel TDM = new TransportationDelayModel(worker, e);
// kick it off
TDM.Run(sqliteFileName, worker, e);
backgroundWorkerLaunched = true;
}
}
The TransportationDelayModel constructor is:
public TransportationDelayModel(BackgroundWorker worker, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
listCentroids = new List<RoadNode>();
listCentroidIDs = new List<int>();
listNodes = new List<RoadNode>();
listNodeIDs = new List<int>();
listRoadLink = new List<RoadLink>();
roadGraph = new AdjacencyGraph<int, RoadLink>(true); // note parallel edges allowed
tdmWorker = worker;
tdmEvent = e;
networkForm = new NetworkForm();
}
so I have the tdmWorker, which allows me to pass information back to the UI.
In the internal calculations in TransportationDelayModel, I sleep for the delay period
if (delay2 > 0)
{
tdmWorker.ReportProgress(-12, zzz);
System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(delay2);
}
so the problem seems to be how to pass an updated slider value from the UI back to the object that is executing in the background worker. I have tried a number of combinations, sort of thrashing around, to no avail, either nothing happens or I get a message about not being allowed to access what is happening on the other thread. I realize that if I were doing all the work in the DoWork event handler, then I should be able to do things as you suggest, but there is too much complexity for that to happen.
Again, thank you for your suggestions and help.
6/2/2012
I have resolved this problem by two methods, but I have some questions. Per my comment to R. Harvey, I have built a simple application. It consists of a form with a run button, a slider, and a rich text box. The run button launches a background worker thread that instantiates an object of class "Model" that does all the work (a simplified surrogate for my TransportationModel). The Model class simply writes 100 lines to the text box, incrementing the number of dots in each line by 1, with a delay between each line based on the setting of the slider, and the slider value at the end of the line, something like this:
....................58
.....................58
......................58
.......................51
........................44
.........................44
The objective of this exercise is to be able to move the slider on the form while the "Model" is running, and get the delay to change (as in above).
My first solution involves the creation of a Globals class, to hold the value of the slider:
class Globals
{
public static int globalDelay;
}
then, in the form, I update this value whenever the trackbar is scrolled:
private void trackBar1_Scroll(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Globals.globalDelay = this.trackBar1.Value;
}
and in the Model, I just pick up the value of the global:
public void Run(BackgroundWorker worker, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
for (int i = 1; i < 100; i++)
{
delay = Globals.globalDelay; // revise delay based on static global set on UI
System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(delay);
worker.ReportProgress(i);
string reportString = ".";
for (int k = 0; k < i; k++)
{
reportString += ".";
}
reportString += delay.ToString();
worker.ReportProgress(-1, reportString);
}
}
}
This works just fine.
My question: are there any drawbacks to this approach, which seems very simple to implement and quite general.
The second approach, based on suggestions by R. Harvey, makes use of delegates and invoke.
I create a class for delegates:
public class MyDelegates
{
public delegate int DelegateCheckTrackBarValue(); // create the delegate here
}
in the form, I create:
public int CheckTrackBarValue()
{
return this.trackBar1.Value;
}
and the Model class now has a member m_CheckTrackBarValue
public class Model
{
#region Members
Form1 passedForm;
public static MyDelegates.DelegateCheckTrackBarValue m_CheckTrackBarValue=null;
#endregion Members
#region Constructor
public Model(BackgroundWorker worker, DoWorkEventArgs e, Form1 form)
{
passedForm = form;
}
When the background thread is launched by the run button, the calling form is passed
private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (backgroundWorker1.IsBusy != true)
{
backgroundWorker1.RunWorkerAsync();
}
}
private void backgroundWorker1_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
BackgroundWorker worker = sender as BackgroundWorker;
if (!backgroundWorkerLaunched)
{
// instantiate the object that does all the heavy work
Model myModel= new Model(worker, e, this);
Model.m_CheckTrackBarValue = new MyDelegates.DelegateCheckTrackBarValue(this.CheckTrackBarValue);
// kick it off
myModel.Run(worker, e);
backgroundWorkerLaunched = true;
}
}
Finally, in the Model, the Invoke method is called on the passed form to get the value of the trackbar.
public void Run(BackgroundWorker worker, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
for (int i = 1; i < 100; i++)
{
int delay = (int)passedForm.Invoke(m_CheckTrackBarValue,null); // invoke the method, note need the cast here
System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(delay);
worker.ReportProgress(i);
string reportString = ".";
for (int k = 0; k < i; k++)
{
reportString += ".";
}
reportString += delay.ToString();
worker.ReportProgress(-1, reportString);
}
}
This works as well. I kept getting an error until I made the member variable static, e.g.
public static MyDelegates.DelegateCheckTrackBarValue m_CheckTrackBarValue=null;
My questions on this solution: Are there advantages to this solution as regards to the previous version? Am I making things too complicated in the way I have implemented this? Why does m_CheckTrackBarValue need to be static.
I apologize for the length of this edit, but I thought that the problem and solutions might be of interest to others.
You have to pass the TrackBar object to the BackgroundWorker, not delay. delay doesn't change once you set it.
To simplify the needed Invoke(), you can use a helper method, such as this one:
Async.UI(delegate { textBox1.Text = "This is way easier!"; }, textBox1, true);
I will assume that you are already familiarized with cross-thread invocation to update the UI. So, the solution is very simple: in your worker thread, after each iteration, invoke the UI to get the slider thumb position.
To use a backgroundworker, you add a method to the DoWork property, like this:
this.backgroundWorker1.WorkerSupportsCancellation = true;
this.backgroundWorker1.DoWork += new System.ComponentModel.DoWorkEventHandler(this.backgroundWorker1_DoWork);
this.backgroundWorker1.RunWorkerCompleted += new System.ComponentModel.RunWorkerCompletedEventHandler(this.backgroundWorker1_RunWorkerCompleted);
In the DoWork method, you need to check the variable where the updated delay is set.
This could be an integer field that is available on the containing Form or UI control, or it could be the TrackBar itself.