ProgressDialog: for executing long-running code with some thread safety

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Introduction

If your WinForms application needs to execute some long-running code, it's best to run it on a thread so the main thread of the form isn't hung up. It is also helpful if the form has a progress bar so the thread can let the user know how it's progressing. But this requires cross-thread access which needs to be done safely.

This brings up three points:

1. The code for thread safety isn't that difficult, but why do have to write it for every form that needs a progress bar?
2. The progress bar is only needed while the long-running code runs, so why have it on the form at all?
3. What if the user wants to cancel the operation?

My solution is to use a dialog that encapsulates the thread-safe manipulation of the progress bar and allows any form to use it without having to add a progress bar and its code to the form itself.

The ability to cancel the operation depends on the operation, but is supported.

Using the code

The code for the ProgressDialog is in ProgressDialog.cs, the other files are for the example application.

Because I derived from the Form class, all the public methods and properties of Form are available, which is not really a good idea. I should have encapsulated the form inside my class, but I decided to be lazy. The result is that the user of the class can modify the appearance of the dialog, and maybe that's not such a bad thing, you have the source code anyway.

At any rate, the only parts of the class that I expect the user of the class to use are:

• The constructors
• The ShowDialog method
• The Result property
• The WasCancelled property
• The RaiseUpdateProgress method
• The ProgressDialogStart delegate

The example demonstrates all of these but the delegate:

// This example demonstrates the ProgressDialog

//

// The form for this example contains

// only a Button, a NumericUpDown, and a Label

// Set the NumericUpDown (to a number of seconds to sleep)

// Click the Button

// When the process completes (or is canceled)

// set the Label to show the elapsed time


namespace Progger
{
    public partial class Form1 : System.Windows.Forms.Form
    {
        // Declare one -- in this example it's important to initialize it

        PIEBALD.Dialogs.ProgressDialog dlg = null ;

        public Form1 ()
        {
            InitializeComponent() ;
        }
        
        private void button1_Click ( object sender , System.EventArgs e )
        {
            System.DateTime start = System.DateTime.Now ;

            // Instantiate it (this example uses an anonymous method)

            dlg = new PIEBALD.Dialogs.ProgressDialog
            (
                "Sleeping",
                this.Icon,
                System.Windows.Forms.ProgressBarStyle.Blocks
// or                System.Windows.Forms.ProgressBarStyle.Marquee,

                true
// or               false,

                delegate
                (
                    object[] Params
                )
                {
                    int howlong = (int) Params [ 0 ] * 10 ;

                    // This is a simple way of implementing the cancel handling

                    for ( int runner = 0 ; !dlg.WasCancelled && 
                        ( runner < howlong ) ; runner++ )
                    {
                        System.Threading.Thread.Sleep ( 100 ) ;

                        // Need to update the ProgressBar

                        // when it's Block or Continuous style

                        // Use a calculation that's appropriate for your usage

                        dlg.RaiseUpdateProgress ( runner * 100 / howlong ) ;
                    }

                    // Return what you want

                    return ( System.DateTime.Now ) ;
                },
                // This value will be passed to the method

                (int) this.numericUpDown1.Value
            ) ;

            // Then all you need to do is 

            dlg.ShowDialog() ;

            // Afterward you can access the WasCancelled

            // and Result properties as needed

            this.label1.Text = string.Format
            (
                "{0} {1:0.00} seconds",
                dlg.WasCancelled?"Woken after":"Slept for",
                ( (System.DateTime) dlg.Result - start ).TotalSeconds
            ) ;
        }
    }
}

Points of Interest

Things to learn from this: cross-thread safety, delegates, and anonymous methods.

History

• First posted - 2006-05-18.