Changing the cursor in WPF sometimes works, sometimes doesn't

Question

On several of my usercontrols, I change the cursor by using

this.Cursor = Cursors.Wait;

when I click on something.

Now I want to do

Answer 1

One way we do this in our application is using IDisposable and then with using(){} blocks to ensure the cursor is reset when done.

public class OverrideCursor : IDisposable
{

  public OverrideCursor(Cursor changeToCursor)
  {
    Mouse.OverrideCursor = changeToCursor;
  }

  #region IDisposable Members

  public void Dispose()
  {
    Mouse.OverrideCursor = null;
  }

  #endregion
}

and then in your code:

using (OverrideCursor cursor = new OverrideCursor(Cursors.Wait))
{
  // Do work...
}

The override will end when either: the end of the using statement is reached or; if an exception is thrown and control leaves the statement block before the end of the statement.

Update

To prevent the cursor flickering you can do:

public class OverrideCursor : IDisposable
{
  static Stack s_Stack = new Stack();

  public OverrideCursor(Cursor changeToCursor)
  {
    s_Stack.Push(changeToCursor);

    if (Mouse.OverrideCursor != changeToCursor)
      Mouse.OverrideCursor = changeToCursor;
  }

  public void Dispose()
  {
    s_Stack.Pop();

    Cursor cursor = s_Stack.Count > 0 ? s_Stack.Peek() : null;

    if (cursor != Mouse.OverrideCursor)
      Mouse.OverrideCursor = cursor;
  }

}