updating UI in windows phone 7 - silverlight

Question

In method that is working in the background, i have two important lines :
createPopup();
MessageBox.Show(sth);
more lines
more lines
createPopup() just creates a popup, adds a grid as a child and shows popup.
My question is, why first shows up messageBox, then shows up Popup, which appears after all lines in this method done ? How could I make this popup to show before all lines in this method will be done ?

Answer 1

All the UI changes are normally queued up and will be shown at once on the screen.
And this does not include MessageBox. So it shows up immediately and prevents the execution, until user clicks on Ok. Hence eventhough your popUP is first executed, it will be shown in the UI only after the MessageBox.
For your problem, Try placing your MessageBox.Show(something) in a separate thread.
createPopup();
Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(() =>
{
MessageBox.Show("some message");
});
more lines
more lines
Give it a try. I am not sure whether it solves your problem or not as I dnt know the code in createPopUp() method.

Answer 2

Creating the pop-up, does not actually draw it on the screen until the Layout event. If you want to ensure that the pop-up has been drawn before you display the pop-up, attach an event handler to the pop-up's LayoutUpdated event and display the message box from within that event handler. Be sure to detach the event handler as well or you will see multiple message boxes.
public InitPage()
{
Popup popup = new Popup();
popup.LayoutUpdated += popup_LayoutUpdated;
LayoutRoot.Controls.Add(popup);
}
void popup_LayoutUpdated(object sender, object e)
{
popup_LayoutUpdated -= popup_LayoutUpdated;
MessageBox.Show("hello");
}