Question

I got to load some data out of a db4o database which takes 1 or 2 seconds at the startup of my app, the rest has to wait because first of all the data has to be loaded. doing this in an own thread would mean that the rest has to wait for the thread-finishing. I’d like to do a splash screen or something during the data is loaded for what also need an own thread, right? how would you do?

I’m using csharp, .net 3.5 and winforms

Answer 1

Showing a splash screen at startup is easy to do. In your application’s Main() method (in Program.cs), put something like this before the Application.Run(…) line:

SplashForm splashy = new SplashForm();
splashy.Show();
Application.Run(new MainForm(splashy));

Modify the code and constructor for your main form so that it looks something like this:

private SplashForm _splashy;
public MainForm(SplashForm splashy)
{
    _splashy = splashy;
    InitializeComponent();
}

Then at the end of your MainForm’s Load event (which presumably contains the database code), put this code:

_splashy.Close();
_splashy.Dispose();

If you choose to do your database access with a separate Thread or BackgroundWorker, then you don’t really need a splash screen so much as you need some sort of progress indicator form that appears while the BackgroundWorker is doing its thing. That would be done differently from my answer here.