How to use Progress bar during loading an xml File

Question

I want to show progress bar during loading a Remote xml file. I am using Windows Application Form in Visual C# 2008 Express Edition.

private void button1_Cl         


        

Answer 1

The progress bar doesn't work here, because this is all "synchronous" code. The Click event blocks the UI from updating.

There are 2 solutions.

You can create a background thread to process the XML file, and the background thread reports progress to the foreground. I'd recommend using a BackgroundWorker, but there's a lot to learn before you do this.

An easier solution, although not optimal, is to refresh the form by calling Application.DoEvents() after each progress update. This should only be considered a short-term solution, because if the task isn't quick, then your application could appear to freeze.

Both solutions have a drawback - when your progress bar is refreshed, your application will also process any events. Therefore, you must manually disable your UI while the task is processing, and re-enable it when finished.

A while back, I created a reusable solution for this issue. I created a "ProgressDialog" that takes a delegate. The progress dialog executes the delegate, and captures the progress, updates its progress bar, and even calculates the time remaining. The benefit of using the ProgressDialog is that I can show the dialog in "modal" mode, which blocks the access to the main UI, and even prevents the Click event from finishing.
Unfortunately, I don't have any code to share, just the idea.