How do I suspend painting for a control and its children?

Question

I have a control which I have to make large modifications to. I\'d like to completely prevent it from redrawing while I do that - SuspendLayout and ResumeLayout aren\'t eno

Answer 1

I usually use a little modified version of ngLink's answer.

public class MyControl : Control
{
    private int suspendCounter = 0;

    private void SuspendDrawing()
    {
        if(suspendCounter == 0) 
            SendMessage(this.Handle, WM_SETREDRAW, false, 0);
        suspendCounter++;
    }

    private void ResumeDrawing()
    {
        suspendCounter--; 
        if(suspendCounter == 0) 
        {
            SendMessage(this.Handle, WM_SETREDRAW, true, 0);
            this.Refresh();
        }
    }
}

This allows suspend/resume calls to be nested. You must make sure to match each SuspendDrawing with a ResumeDrawing. Hence, it wouldn't probably be a good idea to make them public.