How to Avoid Gui Lock

Question

I'm developing a Desktop application. I have a button that upon click calls some webservices.

Problem is when there is no connection or on a slow connection the interface becomes unresponsive and it seems as if the application crashed.

Wonder what are the techniques to get around this

Answer 1

You can make asynchronous calls to the web service. This means that the GUI doesn't wait for the response.

Answer 2

You need to investigate multi-threading.

By creating a thread and performing the processing on that you'll keep the UI responsive.

See this MSDN article for a starting point.

Answer 3

You could use a thread to make the WS requests, and keep the interface thread free and responsive. You should notify the user when waiting by displaying an appropriate message and a progress indicator. Here's something specific to GTK# UI update.

Answer 4

Use the BackgroundWorker class for calling a webservice.

Answer 5

Also see this FAQ (and answer), especially the talk about GTK+'s "idle" system.

Answer 6

I asked something very similar myself. See this post.

BackgroundWorker is your friend!

Answer 7

You should use BackgroundWorker.