Question

I am trying to block the user from clicking a button multiple times while data is being processed after it was started by the initial click.

Simply disabling the button (buttonBackupNow.Enabled = false;) doesn’t help because if the user clicks the button multiple times even when the button is disabled, the form registers the clicks and restarts data processing as soon as the previous data processing routine.

I tried making the button invisible, still the same result. Tried disabling the form, again, the same result. So I think that the only solution is to completely ignore the clicks while data is being processed.

So, how can I stop a form from receiving user mouse clicks?

EDIT: This issue is related to the fact that I am trying to re-enable the button after data processing is finished.

Answer 1

Simply disabling the button (buttonBackupNow.Enabled = false;) doesn’t
help because if the user click the button multiple times even when the
button is disabled, the form registers the clicks and restarts data
processing as soon as the previous data processing routine finished.

Really? How have you accomplished that? I wasn’t able to reproduce it at all. Disabling the button stopped the Click event from being triggered.

This by itself should be enough. You shouldn’t have to disattach the event (as well as using other tricks). If you need resorting to that, something could be not right somewhere else (perhaps some code is re-enabling the button?).

The fact that even removing the handler doesn’t do the trick for you – as you yourself stated in response to Justin Harvey‘s answer – reassures me that the problem lies somewhere else.

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PS. From UX perspective, disabling the button is much better than just ignoring clicks, because it gives your user some visual feedback: the command is not available now. Displaying a message: “not now, I’m doing this stuff already” might be even better perhaps. But leaving a button clickable while not reacting to clicks is bad.

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Update: after OP’s clarified the issue (in a comment)

Well, when the button is pressed, I immediately disable it, then the
data processing sequence follows and when it finishes I re-enable the
button. But I think that the issue has something to do with the fact
that data processing it making the application unresponsive, yet the
form still registers the clicks and the button gets pressed again
after being re-enabled.

You should run this operation asynchronously (on a background thread). Use a BackgroundWorker object and reenable the button in its RunWorkerCompleted event.

It solved the problem.