Executing code on parent thread

I'm fairly new to Threading and things have been going pretty smooth so
far. I did some performance testing on my new app and realized it's
lagging a bit on raising events. It's a realtime app and I need to really
make sure that I'm not falling behind (hence the multi threads) so I
determined what was causing the lag and it's absolutely the events I'm
raising and possibly also the UI work they are doing.

Now, from what I can tell from the framework I'm using (Composite
Application Block) once I'm publishing (raising) the events, they are
handled in the UI thread, but still, I have lag.

Here's my basic situation:
<code>
// class SomeProcessingClass...
public event EventHandler ProcessStarted;
public event EventHandler ProcessComplete;

// the UI calls Something() and Something() starts a thread to run the
lenghtly process...
public void Something()
{
// code to start a new thread and start SomethingProc()
}

public void SomethingProc()
foreach(Item i in items)
{
if(ProcessStarted != null)
ProcessStarted(this, EventArgs.Empty);

DoLongProcess(i);

if(ProcessComplete != null)
ProcessComplete(this, EventArgs.Empty);
}
}

DoLongProcess(Item i)
{
Thread.Sleep(2500);
}
</code>

That was pseudo code, but it's basically what I'm doing. If I comment out
the events, I pretty much hit my real-time performance needs (expect 10
seconds and it actually takes 9.994645)

BUT, I don't want to give up my UI feedback as I'm doing this processing.
I thought that maybe I could increase speed by raising the events on the
thread that Something() was called on rather than SomethingProc() which is
the real performer that needs to not be slowed down by anything.

I can't figure out how to do this.... I don't even know if it's possible.
It seems like any function calls from thread 'B' will execute on thread
'B', I need to make a call from thread 'B' and make it execute on thread
'A'

Any tips?

Thanks for reading!
Steve

Anything that is touching your UI has to be run on your main UI thread
(the thread that created the controls). If you try to do it from any other
thread you will receive exceptions. To help boost your performance ... you
can use BeginInvoke() to push the events to the main thread as opposed to
Invoke() which blocks the background thread until the main thread has
completed the operation.

Cheers,

Greg Young
"sklett" <sk****@mddirect.com> wrote in message
news:OI**************@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...

I'm fairly new to Threading and things have been going pretty smooth so
far. I did some performance testing on my new app and realized it's
lagging a bit on raising events. It's a realtime app and I need to
really make sure that I'm not falling behind (hence the multi threads) so
I determined what was causing the lag and it's absolutely the events I'm
raising and possibly also the UI work they are doing.

Now, from what I can tell from the framework I'm using (Composite
Application Block) once I'm publishing (raising) the events, they are
handled in the UI thread, but still, I have lag.

Here's my basic situation:
<code>
// class SomeProcessingClass...
public event EventHandler ProcessStarted;
public event EventHandler ProcessComplete;

// the UI calls Something() and Something() starts a thread to run the
lenghtly process...
public void Something()
{
// code to start a new thread and start SomethingProc()
}

public void SomethingProc()
foreach(Item i in items)
{
if(ProcessStarted != null)
ProcessStarted(this, EventArgs.Empty);

DoLongProcess(i);

if(ProcessComplete != null)
ProcessComplete(this, EventArgs.Empty);
}
}

DoLongProcess(Item i)
{
Thread.Sleep(2500);
}
</code>

That was pseudo code, but it's basically what I'm doing. If I comment
out the events, I pretty much hit my real-time performance needs (expect
10 seconds and it actually takes 9.994645)

BUT, I don't want to give up my UI feedback as I'm doing this processing.
I thought that maybe I could increase speed by raising the events on the
thread that Something() was called on rather than SomethingProc() which
is the real performer that needs to not be slowed down by anything.

I can't figure out how to do this.... I don't even know if it's possible.
It seems like any function calls from thread 'B' will execute on thread
'B', I need to make a call from thread 'B' and make it execute on thread
'A'

Any tips?

Thanks for reading!
Steve

Hi Greg,

Thanks for the post. I realize now that I should have elaborated on my
mention of the "Composite Application Block" framework. I'm using
traditional events in my worker class, but the subscriber to those events
is using a CAB system called the EventBroker to fire them on the UI
thread, it's being handled for me. :0)

I just want to make the worker class not fire events on it's "worker"
thread, but rather the thread it was originally called on.

Hope that makes sense....? I'm even a little bit confused!
"Greg Young [MVP]" <Dr*************@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:ul**************@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...

Anything that is touching your UI has to be run on your main UI thread
(the thread that created the controls). If you try to do it from any
other thread you will receive exceptions. To help boost your performance
... you can use BeginInvoke() to push the events to the main thread as
opposed to Invoke() which blocks the background thread until the main
thread has completed the operation.

Cheers,

Greg Young
"sklett" <sk****@mddirect.com> wrote in message
news:OI**************@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...

I'm fairly new to Threading and things have been going pretty smooth so
far. I did some performance testing on my new app and realized it's
lagging a bit on raising events. It's a realtime app and I need to
really make sure that I'm not falling behind (hence the multi threads)
so I determined what was causing the lag and it's absolutely the events
I'm raising and possibly also the UI work they are doing.

Now, from what I can tell from the framework I'm using (Composite
Application Block) once I'm publishing (raising) the events, they are
handled in the UI thread, but still, I have lag.

Here's my basic situation:
<code>
// class SomeProcessingClass...
public event EventHandler ProcessStarted;
public event EventHandler ProcessComplete;

// the UI calls Something() and Something() starts a thread to run the
lenghtly process...
public void Something()
{
// code to start a new thread and start SomethingProc()
}

public void SomethingProc()
foreach(Item i in items)
{
if(ProcessStarted != null)
ProcessStarted(this, EventArgs.Empty);

DoLongProcess(i);

if(ProcessComplete != null)
ProcessComplete(this, EventArgs.Empty);
}
}

DoLongProcess(Item i)
{
Thread.Sleep(2500);
}
</code>

That was pseudo code, but it's basically what I'm doing. If I comment
out the events, I pretty much hit my real-time performance needs (expect
10 seconds and it actually takes 9.994645)

BUT, I don't want to give up my UI feedback as I'm doing this
processing. I thought that maybe I could increase speed by raising the
events on the thread that Something() was called on rather than
SomethingProc() which is the real performer that needs to not be slowed
down by anything.

I can't figure out how to do this.... I don't even know if it's
possible. It seems like any function calls from thread 'B' will execute
on thread 'B', I need to make a call from thread 'B' and make it execute
on thread 'A'

Any tips?

Thanks for reading!
Steve

Hi Greg,

Thanks for the post. I realize now that I should have elaborated on
my mention of the "Composite Application Block" framework. I'm using
traditional events in my worker class, but the subscriber to those
events is using a CAB system called the EventBroker to fire them on
the UI thread, it's being handled for me. :0)

I just want to make the worker class not fire events on it's "worker"
thread, but rather the thread it was originally called on.

Hope that makes sense....? I'm even a little bit confused!