Getting multiple UI threads in Windows Forms

Question

I'm trying to figure out a way to make user controls run in their own UI threads. Is this possible? I'm trying to prevent a module-based application from crashing due to a single module.

Any thoughts?

Answer 1

That's not possible. However, with some non-trivial code, you can have different windows running in separate threads. Each window will have its own message loop.

Update:

Another way you could think of is to write your controls in a special way. You can handle all events in your controls by creating a new thread that will run all the logic.

Answer 2

I suppose it's not a matter of the program crashing. Exceptions can be caught of course, but the issue is in hanging controls. For the sake of this situation, here's an example:

public void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs args)
{
     while(true) {}
}

If this code were to run in a control, an exception wouldn't throw, but it would hang. I'm trying to determine a way to catch this and remove the control module from the application.

Answer 3

Unfortunately all UI controls run on the same UI thread. Therefore any code running on this thread that could potentially lead to a hang situation would need to be coded with some sort of timeout logic.

DateTime startTime = DateTime.Now;
while(DateTime.Now.Subtract(startTime).TotalSeconds < 30)
{
     //do something
}

Otherwise, as Orlangur stated earlier, all event handler code would need to be run in separate threads. You would still however need to monitor these threads to determine if they've been running too long and shut them down. As such you might as well implement the type of logic above as it would be a lot less work and more maintainable.

Answer 4

What about running each module in its own separate appdomain. Not sure how to do this but should be possible, right?