Question

For a view constructed using WPF, I want to change the mouse cursor to a hourglass when the application is busy and non-responsive.

One solution is to add

 this.Cursor = Cursors.Wait;

to all the places that may cause the UI to become non-responsive. But obviously this is not the best solution. I am wondering what is the best way to achieve this?

Is it possible to achieve this by using Styles or Resources?

Answer 1

We did a disposable class that changes the cursor for us when the app is going to take long, it looks like this:

public class WaitCursor : IDisposable
{
    private Cursor _previousCursor;

    public WaitCursor()
    {
        _previousCursor = Mouse.OverrideCursor;

        Mouse.OverrideCursor = Cursors.Wait;
    }

    #region IDisposable Members

    public void Dispose()
    {
        Mouse.OverrideCursor = _previousCursor;
    }

    #endregion
}

And we use it like this:

using(new WaitCursor())
{
    // very long task
}

Might not be the greatest design, but it does the trick =)