WinForms interthread modification

Question

Whenever I want to modify a winform from another thread, I need to use

->Invoke(delegate, params)

so that the modification occurs in the winf

Answer 1

The answer of Michael Meadows is a good example of how to centralize logic of updating a GUI form.

Concerning performance (which we can easily become obsessed over) of invoking numerous delegates to synchronize the front end, a while ago, I wrote software that outperformed an equivalent C++ (native) windows application in terms of GUI synchronization! And that was all thanks to BeginInvoke and the ThreadPool class.

Using Action<> and Func<> delegates and the ThreadPool class are beneficial too and consider the general Invoke pattern (exposed by Michael above):

public void TheGuiInvokeMethod(Control source, string text)
{
   if (InvokeRequired)
      Invoke(new Action(TheGuiInvokeMethod, source, text);
   else
   {
       // it is safe to update the GUI using the control
      control.Text = text;
   }
}

where TheGuiInvokeMethod would really be located in a form or other control.