Question

I’ve already done it quite easily in the past with Silverlight, by declaring a BusyIndicator as my root element, and binding the IsBusy property to the IsLoading property of the domain context generated by RIA Services:

<toolkit:BusyIndicator IsBusy="{Binding Context.IsLoading}" >

Since there seems to be no IsLoading property on the ObjectContext generated by Entity Framework, how can I bind the IsBusy property in WPF?

Thank you

Answer 1

What I came up with:

Busy Indicator from the WPF Extended Toolkit:

<extoolkit:BusyIndicator IsBusy="{Binding IsBusy}" BusyContent="Loading data..." >

In my base class view model, I’ve added the following method:

protected void ExecuteBackgroundProcess(Action action)
    {
        IsBusy = true;

        Task task = Task.Factory.StartNew(() => action()).ContinueWith((s) => this.IsBusy = false);
    }

When I want to load a collection from the server, I can call from a derived view model:

this.ExecuteBackgroundProcess(() =>
{
    var collection = _securityRepo.TakeOfType<Security>(10).ToObservableCollection();

    DispatcherHelper.CheckBeginInvokeOnUI(() =>
    {
        Securities = collection;
        RaisePropertyChanged("Securities");
    });                       
});

There’s also a more robust & complete solution on CodeProject:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/WPF/ThreadingComponent.aspx?msg=3319891