Simple Display Dialog of Waiting in WinForms

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• Download demo - 15.3 KB

Introduction

This article describes a simple method to display a waiting dialog and not block the main form.

Background

When I create a WinForm application by C#, it's very troublesome to show a waiting dialog. Sometimes I do it, but not beautiful or hard to change style.

Structure

I use a class library, WaitForm is a waiting dialog, and WaitWndFun is a class to show the form or close by create thread,

WaitWndFun Class Function

Show Function

...
public void Show(Form parent)
        {
            loadthread = new Thread(new ParameterizedThreadStart(LoadingProcessEx));
            loadthread.Start(parent);
        }
...

Close Function

public void Close()
        {
            if (loadingForm != null)
            {
                loadingForm.BeginInvoke(new System.Threading.ThreadStart(loadingForm.CloseLoadingForm));
                loadingForm = null;
                loadthread = null;
            }
        }

Thread Method

private void LoadingProcessEx()
        {
            loadingForm = new WaitForm();
            loadingForm.ShowDialog();
        }
        private void LoadingProcessEx(object parent)
        {
            Form Cparent = parent as Form;
            loadingForm = new WaitForm(Cparent);
            loadingForm.ShowDialog();
        }

When closing dialog, there is a function to close and dispose the form in WaitForm.

public void CloseLoadingForm()
        {
            this.DialogResult = DialogResult.OK;
            this.Close();
            if (label1.Image != null)
            {
                label1.Image.Dispose();
            }
        }

And when there is a parent form, we should show dialog in center of parent.

public WaitForm(Form parent)
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            if (parent != null)
            {
                this.StartPosition = FormStartPosition.Manual;
                this.Location = new Point(parent.Location.X + parent.Width / 2 - this.Width / 2, 
                                parent.Location.Y + parent.Height / 2 - this.Height / 2);
            }
            else
            {
                this.StartPosition = FormStartPosition.CenterParent;
            }
        }

How to Use

It is very easy to use.

1. Reference the WaitWnd.dll or add sources file to your project.
2. Change the style of waiting form, you can change the picture and text of label to your liking in the form designer.

   

3. Create a new WaitWndFun object. When you call show function, the waiting form will appear, and when you call close function, the waiting form will close.
   C#

   WaitWnd.WaitWndFun waitForm = new WaitWnd.WaitWndFun();
           private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
           {
               waitForm.Show(this);
   
               //do something
               waitForm.Close();
           }