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Backgroudworker question

Author
7 May 2007 2:53 PM
Andrew
Hello, friends,

I am using BackgroundWorker() to import files into viewer while users are
working with our app.

However, this backgroud file importing made the app much slower. For
instance, it took about 5 seconds for the app window to refresh. Moreover,
most of the time, the mouse pointer is a hourglass, not the default arrow.

I was hoping this background file importing was a silent one, i.e., our
users should NOT notice this thread is running.

Any ideas, reference papers, sample source code, and etc.? Was this the
right approach for my purpose?

Thanks a lot for your help!

Author
7 May 2007 6:13 PM
Peter Duniho
On Mon, 07 May 2007 07:53:03 -0700, Andrew 
<And***@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

> I am using BackgroundWorker() to import files into viewer while users are
> working with our app.
>
> However, this backgroud file importing made the app much slower.

What "viewer"?  Something of your own design?  Some built-in class?  How 
does the background thread add data to the viewer?  Does the user interact 
with the viewer as the work is done?

You don't offer much in the way of details, but if you are simply adding 
one item at a time from the background thread to some UI component in the 
foreground, then it doesn't surprise me that the operation takes longer 
and that the UI component is still somewhat unresponsive.  That said, if 
you want feedback to the user in the way of items being added to the 
viewer as progress is made, this may be unavoidable to some extent.

You could mitigate the issue by batching items up.  Let some number of 
results accumulate before you actually add them to the viewer, and disable 
updates for the viewer while they are being added.  If having the items 
show up as they are found isn't important, then the best solution would 
probably be to just keep the list of items somewhere until the operation 
is done and then add them to the viewer all at once (or maybe even add 
them to a hidden viewer and swap that in for the displayed on once 
everything's been added).

Pete
Author
7 May 2007 6:17 PM
Jon Skeet [C# MVP]
Andrew <And***@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
> I am using BackgroundWorker() to import files into viewer while users are
> working with our app.
>
> However, this backgroud file importing made the app much slower. For
> instance, it took about 5 seconds for the app window to refresh. Moreover,
> most of the time, the mouse pointer is a hourglass, not the default arrow.
>
> I was hoping this background file importing was a silent one, i.e., our
> users should NOT notice this thread is running.
>
> Any ideas, reference papers, sample source code, and etc.? Was this the
> right approach for my purpose?

I'd like to see *your* source code - or rather, a short but complete
program demonstrating the problem. My guess is that you're not using
BackgroundWorker properly, but it's impossible to say without seeing
some code.

--
Jon Skeet - <sk***@pobox.com>
http://www.pobox.com/~skeet   Blog: http://www.msmvps.com/jon.skeet
If replying to the group, please do not mail me too

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