Display “Wait” screen in WPF

Question

I am trying to display a please wait dialog for a long running operation. The problem is since this is single threaded even though I tell the WaitScreen to display it never

Answer 1

Doing it single threaded really is going to be a pain, and it'll never work as you'd like. The window will eventually go black in WPF, and the program will change to "Not Responding".

I would recommending using a BackgroundWorker to do your long running task.

It's not that complicated. Something like this would work.

private void DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
    //Do the long running process
}

private void WorkerCompleted(object sender, RunWorkerCompletedEventArgs e)
{
    //Hide your wait dialog
}

private void StartWork()
{
   //Show your wait dialog
   BackgroundWorker worker = new BackgroundWorker();
   worker.DoWork += DoWork;
   worker.RunWorkerCompleted += WorkerCompleted;
   worker.RunWorkerAsync();
}

You can then look at the ProgressChanged event to display a progress if you like (remember to set WorkerReportsProgress to true). You can also pass a parameter to RunWorkerAsync if your DoWork methods needs an object (available in e.Argument).

This really is the simplest way, rather than trying to do it singled threaded.