Multithreading with TreeView and ListView controls

[Helge Lenuweit]

Hello,

I have an application that uses TreeView and ListView just like Windows
Explorer or Outlook. You click on a tree node and the list is filled up
with corresponding elements.

My list results come from a (remoting) server, and processing is done in
several layers. Now I would like to do this in a multithreaded scenario,
i.e. fetching the list results in the background and then update the
list. I have consulted all the pertinent sources for this on the net,
and it works (relatively) fine so far.

My question is: if the user clicks a different tree node while a fetch
operation is in progress, I would like to stop the worker thread. Or at
least wait for it to be finished, as, for example, SQLReader exceptions
tend to occur when rampantly clicking on nodes. I tried to keep my
separate thread in a static field and return it through something like

internal static Thread ListLoadWorker {
get {
if( _listLoadWorker != null && _listLoadWorker.ThreadState !=
ThreadState.Unstarted ){
_listLoadWorker.Join(50);
}
return _listLoadWorker;
}
/*bla bla*/
}

It just won't come to the point where I could wait for a previous thread
to be finished. What am I missing here?

Best regards, Helge