I'm working on an application to be able to monitor production information on a 3x3 (so 9 screen) video wall. One of the screen sets that I'm working on right now retrieves information and then formats for display on the screen. It takes about 2 seconds to retrieve and format this data (just a rough guess, not actually measured). Because it does 9 screen, one after the other, there is a very noticeable amount of time to switch to this screen set. The PC driving this video wall has 8 processing cores, so while one processor is chugging away doing all this work, there's plenty of processing power just sitting idle.
My first thought is that I need to use multi-threading. Unfortunately, I'm very new to this concept. I really have only used it one other time. I tried creating a BackgroundWorker and having the DoWork routine generate my UI. Unfortunately, it crashes the first time I try to create a UI element (Dim grLine as New Grid). I did manage to get around that by having a dummy DoWork routine and generating all my UI in the RunWorkerCompleted routine. This does allow my blank window to show up immediately, but none of the UI I'm generating shows up until it has all been rendered.
Here's a very cleaned up version of what I'm trying to do:
For i As Integer = 1 to 9
Dim win As New MyCustomWindow
win.DisplayScreen = i ' This function in MyCustomWindow sets the Bounds
win.MyShow({1, 2}) ' Sample args
Globals.VideoWall.Windows(i) = win
Next
The MyCustomWindow Class:
Class MyCustomWindow
Public Sub MyShow(a() as Integer)
Me.Show() ' Has a "Loading..." TextBlock
Dim bw as New ComponentModel.BackgroundWorker
AddHandler bw.DoWork, AddressOf Generate_UI_DoWork
AddHandler bw.RunWorkerCompleted, AddressOf Generate_UI_Complete
bw.RunWorkerAsync(a)
End Sub
Private Sub Generate_UI_DoWork((sender As Object, e As ComponentModel.DoWorkEventArgs)
' Pass our arguments to the Complete routine.
e.Result = e.Argument
End Sub
Private Sub Generate_OpsMarket_Complete(sender As Object, e As ComponentModel.RunWorkerCompletedEventArgs)
Dim IDs() as Integer
IDs = e.Result
Dim grLine As New Grid ' We crash here if this code is in DoWork instead of RunWorkerCompleted
For Each id As Integer In IDs
grLine.RowDefinitions.Add(New RowDefinition)
Dim txt as New TextBlock ' For a header
grLine.Children.Add(txt)
grLine.RowDefinitions.Add(New RowDefinition)
Dim MyCtrl as New MyCustomControl()
MyCustomControl.GetData(id)
grLine.Children.Add(MyCtrl.MyGrid)
txt.Text = MyCtrl.Header
Next
txLoading.Visibility = Visibility.Hidden
grRoot.Children.Add(grLine)
End Sub
End Class
I tried to leave enough detail in the code so hopefully it'll be evident what I'm trying to accomplish, but keeping it small enough to not be overwhelming.
Edited to add:
The bulk of the work happens in MyCustomControl.GetData(id) ... that Sub downloads the data from a web server (in JSON format), parses the JSON, then generates the rows (3) and columns (30 or 31, depending on the month) for the Grid and fills in the data it received from the web server.
Your current BackgroundWorker implementation give you no benefits, as you noticed by your self.
Your main problem is that your current code/logic tightly depend on UI controls. Which strict you with UI thread. Because creating/updating UI controls can be done only on UI thread - that's why you got Exception when trying create/update UI controls in BackgroundWorker.DoWork handler.
Suggest to separate logic which retrieve monitoring information in parallel and then you can create/update control on UI with already formatted data.
This is raw/pseudo example
Class DataService
Public Function GetData(ids As Integer()) As YourData
' Get data from web service
' Validate and Format it to YourData type or List(Of Yourdata)
Return data
End Function
End Class
Class MyCustomWindow
Public Sub MyShow(a() as Integer)
Me.Show() ' Has a "Loading..." TextBlock
Dim bw as New ComponentModel.BackgroundWorker
AddHandler bw.DoWork, AddressOf Generate_UI_DoWork
AddHandler bw.RunWorkerCompleted, AddressOf Generate_UI_Complete
bw.RunWorkerAsync(a)
End Sub
Private Sub Generate_UI_DoWork((sender As Object, e As ComponentModel.DoWorkEventArgs)
Dim service As New DataService()
Dim data = service.GetData(e.Argument)
e.Result = data
End Sub
Private Sub Generate_OpsMarket_Complete(sender As Object,
e As ComponentModel.RunWorkerCompletedEventArgs)
Dim data As Yourdata = DirectCast(e.Result, YourData)
'Update UI controls with already formatted data
End Sub
End Class
Update on Sub downloads the data from a web server
In this case you don't need multi-threading/parallel at all. Because you loading time is waiting time for response. In this case my advice will be using async/await approach, which will release UI thread(make it responsive) while you waiting for response from web-service.
Class DataService
Public Async Function GetDataAsync(ids As Integer()) As Task(Of YourData)
Using client As HttpClient = New HttpClient()
Dim response As HttpResponseMessage = Await client.GetAsync(yourUrl)
If response.IsSuccessStatusCode = True Then
Return Await response.Content.ReadAsAsync<YourData>()
End If
End Using
End Function
End Class
Then in the view you don't need BackgroundWorker
Class MyCustomWindow
Public Async Sub MyShow(a() as Integer) As Task
Me.Show() ' Has a "Loading..." TextBlock
Dim service As New DataService()
Dim data As YourData = Await service.GetDataAsync(a)
UpdateControlsWithData(data)
End Sub
Private Sub UpdateControlsWithData(data As YourData)
' Update controls with received data
End Sub
End Class
For what it's worth, here are a few examples which do 9 x 500ms of data operations, then simple UI operation.
The first example runs on a background thread but the main loop runs in sequence. The messagebox at the end shows that it takes around 4500 ms because of the 500 ms thread sleep is run sequentially. Notice how the DoWork method has nothing to do with the UI. It uses two threads: the UI thread and one background worker. Since it's not doing work on the UI, the form is responsive while the background worker is working.
Private bw_single As New BackgroundWorker()
Private Sub Button1_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
AddHandler bw_single.DoWork, AddressOf bw_single_DoWork
AddHandler bw_single.RunWorkerCompleted, AddressOf bw_single_Complete
bw_single.RunWorkerAsync()
End Sub
Private Sub bw_single_DoWork(sender As Object, e As DoWorkEventArgs)
' runs on background thread
Dim data As New List(Of Integer)()
Dim sw As New Stopwatch
sw.Start()
For i As Integer = 1 To 9
' simulate downloading data, etc.
Threading.Thread.Sleep(500)
data.Add(i)
Next
sw.Stop()
e.Result = New Result(data, sw.ElapsedMilliseconds)
End Sub
Private Sub bw_single_Complete(sender As Object, e As RunWorkerCompletedEventArgs)
RemoveHandler bw_single.DoWork, AddressOf bw_single_DoWork
RemoveHandler bw_single.RunWorkerCompleted, AddressOf bw_single_Complete
' runs on UI thread
Dim res = CType(e.Result, Result)
Me.DataGridView1.DataSource = res.Data
MessageBox.Show(
String.Format("Performed on bw (single), took {0} ms, data: {1}",
res.Elapsed, String.Join(", ", res.Data)))
End Sub
(This is the class which holds the result of the background worker)
Private Class Result
Public Property Data As IEnumerable(Of Integer)
Public Property Elapsed As Long
Public Sub New(data As IEnumerable(Of Integer), elapsed As Long)
Me.Data = data
Me.Elapsed = elapsed
End Sub
End Class
The second example runs on a background thread but the main loop runs in parallel. The messagebox at the end shows that it takes around 1000 ms ... why? Because my machine like yours has 8 logical cores but we are sleeping 9 times. So at least one core is doing two sleeps and this will gate the entire operation. Again, there is one thread for the UI, one for the background worker, but for the parallel loop, the OS will allocate CPU time from the remaining cores to each additional thread. The UI is responsive and it takes a fraction of the time of the first example to do the same thing
Private bw_multi As New BackgroundWorker()
Private Sub Button2_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Button2.Click
AddHandler bw_multi.DoWork, AddressOf bw_multi_DoWork
AddHandler bw_multi.RunWorkerCompleted, AddressOf bw_multi_Complete
bw_multi.RunWorkerAsync()
End Sub
Private Sub bw_multi_DoWork(sender As Object, e As DoWorkEventArgs)
' runs on background thread
Dim data As New ConcurrentBag(Of Integer)()
Dim sw As New Stopwatch
sw.Start()
Parallel.For(1, 9,
Sub(i)
data.Add(i)
Threading.Thread.Sleep(500)
End Sub)
sw.Stop()
e.Result = New Result(data, sw.ElapsedMilliseconds)
End Sub
Private Sub bw_multi_Complete(sender As Object, e As RunWorkerCompletedEventArgs)
RemoveHandler bw_multi.DoWork, AddressOf bw_multi_DoWork
RemoveHandler bw_multi.RunWorkerCompleted, AddressOf bw_multi_Complete
' runs on UI thread
Dim res = CType(e.Result, Result)
Me.DataGridView1.DataSource = res.Data
MessageBox.Show(
String.Format("Performed on bw (multi), took {0} ms, data: {1}",
res.Elapsed, String.Join(", ", res.Data)))
End Sub
Since the above two examples utilize background workers to do their work, they will not freeze the UI thread. The only code running on the UI is in the button click handlers and the RunWorkerCompleted handler.
Lastly, this example uses only a single UI thread. It will freeze the UI while it's running for 4500 seconds. Just so you know what to avoid...
Private Sub Button3_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Button3.Click
Dim data As New List(Of Integer)()
Dim sw As New Stopwatch
sw.Start()
For i As Integer = 1 To 9
' simulate downloading data, etc.
Threading.Thread.Sleep(500)
data.Add(i)
Next
sw.Stop()
Dim res = New Result(data, sw.ElapsedMilliseconds)
Me.DataGridView1.DataSource = res.Data
MessageBox.Show(
String.Format("Performed on bw (single), took {0} ms, data: {1}",
res.Elapsed, String.Join(", ", res.Data)))
End Sub
Summarily, you should figure out how to separate the data layer from the UI. See separation of concerns and the SO question, Why is good UI design so hard for some Developers?, and this one What UI design principles like “separation of concerns” can I use to convince developers that the UI needs fixing?
I am trying to use a timer to scan my Xbox 360 controller. But I cannot directly update my UI like the code I wrote below.
I would get a exception when I try to run this code.
An exception of type 'System.InvalidOperationException' occurred in WindowsBase.dll but was not handled in user code
Additional information: The calling thread cannot access this object because a different thread owns it.
XButton is a radiobutton on the GUI that I want to toggle.
Imports Microsoft.Xna.Framework
Imports Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input
Imports System.Timers
Imports System.Windows.Threading
Public Class XboxControllerStatus
Friend WithEvents Timer1 As Timer
Private Sub Timer1_Tick(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Timer1.Elapsed
Dim currentState As GamePadState = GamePad.GetState(PlayerIndex.One)
If currentState.IsConnected Then
If currentState.Buttons.X.Pressed Then
XButton.IsChecked = True
Else
XButton.IsChecked = False
End If
End If
End Sub
End Class
This works for me, all the time
Control.Invoke(sub()
'Put code here
End Sub)
First you need to set up a delegate
Delegate Sub SetCheckBoxCallback(ByVal value As Boolean)
Friend Sub SetCheckBox(ByVal value As Boolean)
XButton.IsChecked = value
End Sub
after that all you need to do is call the following code from within your timer to invoke it:
Dim DesiredValue as Boolean = True
Me.Dispatcher.Invoke(New SetCheckboxCallback(AddressOf SetCheckbox), New
Object() {DesiredValue})
So my issue may sound familiar, I simply want to update a progress bar concurrently with the data that is being processed in my program.
I have two windows: StartupWindow and UpdateWindow.
The Application begins by creating the startup window, the user will push a button to open the UpdateWindow. The following is the code for the button:
Private Sub btnUpdateClick(sender As Object, e As RoutedEventArgs) Handles btnUpdate.Click
Dim updateWindow As New UpdateWindow
updateWindow.ShowDialog()
btnUpdate.IsEnabled = False
End Sub
With this code I got the error most other people do: "The calling thread cannot access this object because a different thread owns it."
Private Sub updateDevice()
Dim currPercent As Integer
currPercent = ((sentPackets / totalPacketsToWrite) * 100)
progressLabel.content = currPercent.ToString + "%"
pb.Maximum = totalPacketsToWrite
pb.Value = sentPackets
If sentPackets < totalPacketsToWrite Then
'....update....
Else
MsgBox("Device now has update stored on flash!")
'...close everything up
End If
End Sub
Here are the three things I have tried so far:
Use Invoke/Dispatcher/Delegate to try and seem to only be able to put the update in a different thread's queue? Can't seem to pause other the other threads to update the UI either...
Implement the BackgroundWorker Class and use report progress from it, this worked but I could only update the progress bar under bw.DoWork I make a lot of calls and have responses from external devices so it would be difficult to put all my code under one function.
I read somewhere that since this was the second window created (called from the original) I would have issues with it. So I took someone's solution and tried to create and entire new thread when the 'update' button was pressed ie.:
Something to note is that I added a 'cancel' button:
Private Sub buttonStart_Click(sender As Object, e As RoutedEventArgs) Handles btnStart.Click
btnStart.IsEnabled = False
btnStart.Visibility = Windows.Visibility.Hidden
btnCancel.IsEnabled = True
btnCancel.Visibility = Windows.Visibility.Visible
beginUpdate()
End Sub
Private Sub buttonCancel_Click(sender As Object, e As RoutedEventArgs) Handles btnCancel.Click
btnStart.IsEnabled = True
btnStart.Visibility = Windows.Visibility.Visible
btnCancel.IsEnabled = False
btnCancel.Visibility = Windows.Visibility.Hidden
'TODO MAKE IT CANCEL
End Sub
And every time I clicked the update/cancel button the progress bar would update. Every time I pressed the button it refreshed the progress bar to the current completion. I'm quite puzzled, I am able to update user interfaces if it is just one window... but if the user pushes a button to call a new window I cannot update anything in the second window. Any suggestions?
EDIT:
I ended up making global variables that updated in my long code. Than ran backgroundworker before I did anything else and it ran asynchronous to my process, updating the progress bar:
Private Sub bw_DoWork(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As DoWorkEventArgs)
Dim worker As BackgroundWorker = CType(sender, BackgroundWorker)
While finished = False
Threading.Thread.Sleep(50)
bw.ReportProgress(currPercent)
End While
End Sub
The start of my code was simple - like so:
Private Sub buttonStart_Click(sender As Object, e As RoutedEventArgs) Handles btnStart.Click
bw.RunWorkerAsync()
beginUpdate()
End Sub
First things first... get the ProgressBar working: For this part, please read my answer to the Progress Bar update from Background worker stalling question here on Stack Overflow. Now, let's assume that you've got the basic update of a ProgressBar working... next, you want to be able to cancel the work. It is a simple matter to update the DowWork method accordingly:
private void DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
for (int i = 0; i <= 100; i++)
{
if (IsCancelled) break; // cancellation check
Thread.Sleep(100); // long running process
backgroundWorker.ReportProgress(i);
}
}
So all you need to do to cancel the long running process and the ProgressBar update is to set the IsCancelled property to true.
I'm using the below to restore a database in VB.NET.
This works but causes the interface to lockup if the user clicks anything.
Also, I cannot get the progress label to update incrementally, it's blank until the backup is complete then displays 100%
Sub DoRestore()
Dim svr As Server = New Server("Server\SQL2008")
Dim res As Restore = New Restore()
res.Devices.AddDevice("C:\MyDB.bak", DeviceType.File)
res.Database = "MyDB"
res.RelocateFiles.Add(New RelocateFile("MyDB_Data", "C:\MyDB.mdf"))
res.RelocateFiles.Add(New RelocateFile("MyDB_Log", "C:\MyDB.ldf"))
res.PercentCompleteNotification = 1
AddHandler res.PercentComplete, AddressOf ProgressEventHandler
res.SqlRestore(svr)
End Sub
Is this change correct?:
Private Sub ProgressEventHandler(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As PercentCompleteEventArgs)
UpdateProgressBar(e.Percent)
End Sub
Private Sub UpdateProgressBar(ByVal e As String)
ProgressBar.Value = e
Status.Text = e.ToString
End Sub
You need to use SqlRestoreAsync not SqlRestore to prevent it tying up your main thread.
Then to avoid the Cross Thread Operation error when updating the UI you can use the approach here. Where you create a method on the form that will update the UI elements and call that from your asynch handler using Invoke.
We have an issue in our Silverlight application which uses WCF and Entity Framework, where we need to trap the event whenever a user shuts down the application by closing the web page or the browser instead of closing the silverlight application. This is in order to verify if any changes have been made, in which case we would ask the user if he wants to save before leaving.
We were able to accomplish the part which consists in trapping the closing of the web page: we wrote some code in the application object that have the web page call a method in the silverlight application object. The problem starts when in this method, we do an asynchroneous call to the Web Service to verify if changes have occured (IsDirty). We are using a DispatcherTimer to check for the return of the asynchroneous call. The problem is that the asynchroneous call never completes (in debug mode, it never ends up stepping into the _BfrServ_Customer_IsDirtyCompleted method), while it used to work fine before we added this new functionality.
You will find belowthe code we are using.
I am new to writing timers in combination with asynchroneous call so I may be doing something wrong but I cannot figure out what. I tried other things also but we without any success..
====================== CODE ==============================================
''# Code in the application object
Public Sub New()
InitializeComponent()
RegisterOnBeforeUnload()
_DispatcherTimer.Interval = New TimeSpan(0, 0, 0, 0, 500)
End Sub
Public Sub RegisterOnBeforeUnload()
''# Register Silverlight object for availability in Javascript.
Const scriptableObjectName As String = "Bridge"
HtmlPage.RegisterScriptableObject(scriptableObjectName, Me)
''# Start listening to Javascript event.
Dim pluginName As String = HtmlPage.Plugin.Id
HtmlPage.Window.Eval(String.Format("window.onbeforeunload = function () {{ var slApp = document.getElementById('{0}'); var result = slApp.Content.{1}.OnBeforeUnload(); if(result.length > 0)return result;}}", pluginName, scriptableObjectName))
End Sub
Public Function OnBeforeUnload() As String
Dim userControls As List(Of UserControl) = New List(Of UserControl)
Dim test As Boolean = True
If CType(Me.RootVisual, StartPage).LayoutRoot.Children.Item(0).GetType().Name = "MainPage" Then
If Not CType(CType(Me.RootVisual, StartPage).LayoutRoot.Children.Item(0), MainPage).FindName("Tab") Is Nothing Then
If CType(CType(Me.RootVisual, StartPage).LayoutRoot.Children.Item(0), MainPage).FindName("Tab").Items.Count >= 1 Then
For Each item As TabItem In CType(CType(Me.RootVisual, StartPage).LayoutRoot.Children.Item(0), MainPage).Tab.Items
If item.Content.GetType().Name = "CustomerDetailUI"
_Item = item
WaitHandle = New AutoResetEvent(False)
DoAsyncCall()
Exit
End If
Next
End If
End If
End If
If _IsDirty = True Then
Return "Do you want to save before leaving."
Else
Return String.Empty
End If
End Function
Private Sub DoAsyncCall()
_Item.Content.CheckForIsDirty(WaitHandle) ''# This code resides in the CustomerDetailUI UserControl - see below for the code
End Sub
Private Sub _DispatcherTimer_Tick(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles _DispatcherTimer.Tick
If Not _Item.Content._IsDirtyCompleted = True Then
Exit Sub
End If
_DispatcherTimerRunning = False
_DispatcherTimer.Stop()
ProcessAsyncCallResult()
End Sub
Private Sub ProcessAsyncCallResult()
_IsDirty = _Item.Content._IsDirty
End Sub
''# CustomerDetailUI code
Public Sub CheckForIsDirty(ByVal myAutoResetEvent As AutoResetEvent)
_AutoResetEvent = myAutoResetEvent
_BfrServ.Customer_IsDirtyAsync(_Customer) ''# This method initiates asynchroneous call to the web service - all the details are not shown here
_AutoResetEvent.WaitOne()
End Sub
Private Sub _BfrServ_Customer_IsDirtyCompleted(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As BFRService.Customer_IsDirtyCompletedEventArgs) Handles _BfrServ.Customer_IsDirtyCompleted
If _IsDirtyFromRefesh Then
_IsDirtyFromRefesh = False
If e.Result = True Then
Me.Confirm("This customer has been modified. Are you sure you want to refresh your data ? " & vbNewLine & " Your changes will be lost.", "Yes", "No", Message.CheckIsDirtyRefresh)
End If
Busy.IsBusy = False
Else
If e.Result = True Then
_IsDirty = True
Me.Confirm("This customer has been modified. Would you like to save?", "Yes", "No", Message.CheckIsDirty)
Else
Me.Tab.Items.Remove(Me.Tab.SelectedItem)
Busy.IsBusy = False
End If
End If
_IsDirtyCompleted = True
_AutoResetEvent.Set()
End Sub
Your problem is that the DispatchTimer is trying to execute code on the same thread that you are blocking with the Wait. Hence it can't deliver the tick.
I'm not sure I'm clear why you need the timer at all. Why not simply block the UI thread (as in fact you already doing) directly in the call to OnBeforeUnload. Then have the asynchronous callback function set the wait handle after it has assigned the value of _IsDirty.
Follow the Wait with your message boxes.