Silverlight Dispatcher

Posted on by

Threading in Silverlight is simple and have very few classes and limited functionality.

In Silverlight we rarely go for the threading since the platform itself is asynchronous. Click to read how to do asynchronous programming in C# 5.0

In Silverlight the  main thread is incorporated with the Dispatcher, and we can use the BeginInvoke method of the Dispatcher class to update the UI from a different thread. According to the MSDN documentation Dispatcher in Silverlight is intended for the UI updates.

I’m using a dummy method which returns a string reversed of its input. And let’s assume it takes 4 seconds to complete the task.

So we need a thread to do the work, without blocking the UI. Once the task completed we have to display the string in the UI.

Here’s my simple and the dirty UI, a TextBox, a Button and a TextBlock to show the output.

image

Here’s the code goes under the Button click event , you can do the work in a thread and return the updates to the UI safely using Dispatcher.

{
string name = textBox1.Text;
Thread thread =new Thread(() =>
{  _reversedString = ReverseString(name);
   this.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(() =>
     {
              textBlock1.Text = _reversedString;
     });
});
thread.Name =“Reverse String Thread“;
thread.Start();
}

When hitting the debug and break point we can ensure that our thread is really started and running.

1

Code for the ReverseString method

private string ReverseString(string input)
{
     char[] array = input.ToCharArray();
    Array.Reverse(array);
    Thread.Sleep(4000);
    return new String(array);
}

Let’s discuss how Dispatcher can communicate across threads.

You can clearly notice that, I got the Dispatcher object using this.Dispatcher. This gives the Dispatcher of the Page (MainPage).

Dispatcher is a member of the DependencyObject class. So all the elements mainly UI controls have the Dispatcher property.

Silverlight is a Single Threaded Apartment (STA) Model. And as mentioned earlier it is incorporated with the main thread of the Silverlight. It is the thread responsible of the creation of the UI elements.

Trying to create UI elements from custom threads will throw thread exceptions as they try get the one and only Dispatcher from a different thread.

Here I compare the difference Dispatcher obrtained. First I got the Dispatcher of the RootVisual. Second the TextBlock control. Third I get the Dispatcher reference of the Deplyoment.

System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher appDisptcher = Application.Current.RootVisual.Dispatcher;
System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher textBlockDispatcher = textBlock1.Dispatcher;
System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher deploymentDispatcher = System.Windows.Deployment.Current.Dispatcher;
if (appDisptcher.Equals(textBlockDispatcher))
{
    MessageBox.Show(“Root Visual Dispatcher is same as TextBlock Dispatcher“);
    
    if (appDisptcher.Equals(deploymentDispatcher))
    {
          MessageBox.Show(“All three are same indeed“);
    }
}

You can see that all Dispatchers equal. So Dispatcher works from one golden rule that is Silverlight is Single Threaded Apartment (STA) model where with that main thread Dispatcher is incorporated.

Advertisement

7 thoughts on “Silverlight Dispatcher”

  1. Pingback: UI Updates – Part 2 | Thuru in HTTP(S) ;)

  2. Having read this I believed it was very enlightening. I appreciate you finding the
    time and energy to put this article together.

  3. Thank you for the good writeup.
    However, how can we communicate?

  4. I think this is one of the most significant info for me.
    And i’m glad reading your article.

  5. I was very pleased to discover this site. I want
    to to thank you for ones time just for this fantastic read!

  6. I’m amazed, I’m very happy that I stumbled across this during my hunt for something concerning this.

  7. Howdy! Fairly certain he will have a good read. Thank you for sharing!

Comments are closed.