How can I show a messagebox or loadingbox while doing a loop? (Code may be blocked and after 25 seconds continue)

Question

I already have this but it doesn't work... I need to check if a bit from plc is high or not. If it is still high I need to wait 5 seconds and check again.. Now I am trying to find something so there is some visual feedback for the user. In a textbox I want to put 'waiting...' while the points after waiting increase per 5 seconds. I tried a lot of things but can't seem to get it to work. Mostly of the time's it just hangs 25 seconds without updating the GUI and then it continues... :/

// First check if the plc bit, that says if there is still an order active, 
// is still set. If so then we wait a couple seconds.
var bitorder = Main.PIOGetValue(jbmis.IO_GET_INPUT, "BoxManInStarted");
int counter = 1;
string loadingpoints = "";

loadtimer.Tick += timer_Tick;
loadtimer.Interval = (int)TimeSpan.FromSeconds(5).TotalMilliseconds;
loadtimer.Start();
loadtimer.Enabled = true;

// Stopwatch sw = new Stopwatch();

while(bitorder != 0 && loadtimercounter != 25)
{
    // TODO multithreaded

    #region testcode
    // MessageBox.Show("Waiting for previous order to be stopped" + loadingpoints);
    // Context.UserMessageService
    //     .ShowMessage("Waiting for previous order to be stopped" + 
    //                  loadingpoints, "Waitingfororder");
    // sw.Start();

    // while (sw.Elapsed < TimeSpan.FromSeconds(25)) 
    // {
    //     if (sw.Elapsed.Seconds % 5 == 0)
    //     {
    //         loadingpoints = loadingpoints + ".";
    //         tbScannedEANPick.Background = Brushes.OrangeRed;
    //         tbScannedEANPick.Text = "Waiting" + loadingpoints;
    //     }                                        
    // }

    // sw.Stop();
    // loadingpoints = loadingpoints + ".";
    // tbScannedEANPick.Background = Brushes.OrangeRed;
    // tbScannedEANPick.Text = "Waiting" + loadingpoints;
    // tbScannedEANPick.UpdateLayout();
    #endregion

    if (loadtimercounter % 5 == 0)
    {
        loadingpoints = loadingpoints + ".";
        tbScannedEANPick.Background = Brushes.OrangeRed;
        tbScannedEANPick.Text = "Waiting" + loadingpoints;
        tbScannedEANPick.IsReadOnly = true;

        bitorder = Main.PIOGetValue(jbmis.IO_GET_INPUT, "BoxManInStarted");
    }

    counter ++;
}

//  After 25 seconds stop timer and continue
loadtimer.Stop();

void timer_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    loadtimercounter += 5;
}

I am searching for half a day... I tried to use Thread.sleep, timer, stopwatch, ... all in main thread or side thread..

Thanks in advance!!

Answer 1

You need to do the work on a separate thread. Look into asynchronous programming

Or you could just simply use multi threading. I would recommend using asynchronous programming for both doing the background work and updating the GUI's textbox control.

Answer 2

You should use a background worker . There is a dedicated report progress event that can be used to update the loading box that you need.

Background Worker Class and example