Update UI from multiple worker threads (.NET)

Question

I have a pet project that I'm working on that has multiple worker threads. Outputting everything to the console is getting hard to follow, so I want to develop a UI that will have one output area per thread. I want to know the best way for the threads to send updates to the UI. I have two ideas:

1) Have each thread set a "DataUpdated" flag when new data is available, and have the UI periodically check for new data.

2) Create each thread with a callback to a UI Update(...) method to be called when new data becomes available.

I am currently leaning toward (2) for two reasons: I dislike the idea of "checking" each thread, and because this is my first multithreaded application and (2) seems simpler than it probably is. I want to know:

• Which option is preferable in terms of simplicity and efficiency?
• Do you have any tips for implementing (2) or something like it (i.e. more event-driven)?

Answer 1

I vote for #2 as well but with BackgroundWorkers instead of System.Threading.Threads.

Answer 2

You can easily implement (2) by creating BackgroundWorker components and doing the work in their DoWork handlers:

BackgroundWorker bw = new BackgroundWorker();
bw.WorkerReportsProgress = true;
bw.DoWork += /* your background work here */;
bw.ProgressChanged += /* your UI update method here */;
bw.RunWorkerAsync();

Each BackgroundWorker can report progress to the UI thread by calling ReportProgress: although this is primarily designed for reporting progress on a bounded process, that's not mandatory -- you can pass your own custom data as well if that's what your UI update requires. You would call ReportProgress from your DoWork handler.

The nice thing about BackgroundWorker is that it takes care of a lot of messy cross-threading details for you. It also conforms to the event-driven model of updates which you (rightly) prefer to explicit callbacks.

Answer 3

You can have your worker threads raise events and have the main UI thread add event handlers. You need to be careful you're not raising too many events as it could get ugly if your worker threads are raising multiple events per second.

This article gives a quick overview.

Answer 4

The preferred way to implement multithreading in your application is to use the BackgroundWorker component. The BackgroundWorker component uses an event-driven model for multithreading. The worker thread runs your DoWork event handler, and the thread that creates your controls runs your ProgressChanged and RunWorkerCompleted event handlers.
When you update your UI controls in the ProgressChanged eventhandler, they are automatically updated on main thread which will prevent you from getting crossthread exceptions.

Look here for an example on how to use the backgroundworker.

Answer 5

In most cases the easiest thing to do would be to use the BackgroundWorker component as suggested in itowlson's answer, and I would strongly suggest using that approach if possible. If, for some reason, you can't use a BackgroundWorker component for your purpose, such as if you're developing with .Net 1.1 (yikes!) or with compact framework, then you might need to use an alternative approach:

With Winform controls you have to avoid modifying controls on any thread other than the thread that originally created the control. The BackgroundWorker component handles this for you, but if you aren't using that, then you can and should use the InvokeRequired property and Invoke method found on the System.Windows.Forms.Control class. Below is an example that uses this property and method:

public partial class MultithreadingForm : Form
{
    public MultithreadingForm()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
    }

    // a simple button event handler that starts a worker thread
    private void btnDoWork_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        Thread t = new Thread(WorkerMethod);
        t.Start();
    }

    private void ReportProgress(string message)
    {
        // check whether or not the current thread is the main UI thread
        // if not, InvokeRequired will be true
        if (this.InvokeRequired)
        {
            // create a delegate pointing back to this same function
            // the Invoke method will cause the delegate to be invoked on the main UI thread
            this.Invoke(new Action<string>(ReportProgress), message);
        }
        else
        {
            // txtOutput is a UI control, therefore it must be updated by the main UI thread
            if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(this.txtOutput.Text))
                this.txtOutput.Text = message;
            else
                this.txtOutput.Text += "\r\n" + message;
        }
    }

    // a generic method that does work and reports progress
    private void WorkerMethod()
    {
        // step 1
        // ...
        ReportProgress("Step 1 completed");

        // step 2
        // ...
        ReportProgress("Step 2 completed");

        // step 3
        // ...
        ReportProgress("Step 3 completed");
    }
}

Answer 6

If you're creating your own threads (non BackgroundWorker or ThreadPool threads) you can pass a callback method from your main thread that's called from the worker thread. This also lets you pass arguments to the callback and even return a value (such as a go/no-go flag). In your callback you update the UI through the target control's Dispatcher:

public void UpdateUI(object arg)
{
    controlToUpdate.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(
        System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherPriority.Normal
        , new System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherOperationCallback(delegate
        {
            controToUpdate.property = arg;
            return null;
        }), null);
    }
}