Question

I’ve tried overriding the OnLoad event, but the form is getting drawn before this method finishes. I am calling the base.OnLoad method. But, the form is partially getting drawn (artifacts are seen) during the event. I notice this because I’m hitting the database and it is taking some time. In the event, I’m getting some data and binding it to the form’s controls. Please don’t tell me to use a separate thread. For simplicity, I would rather just show a busy cursor while the data is being loaded.

UPDATE:

Ok, I think you guys/gals have convinced me. I’ll use a separate thread. I wasn’t aware of the BackgroundWorker and it was very easy to implement. Now my form is loading quickly. And then, all of a sudden my combo boxes are populated. But, I’d like prevent the user from clicking on the combos before they’re populated. What is the best way/standard way of doing this using Winforms? Is there a way to turn off input events in the form until the background worker is finished?

Answer 1

You could try doing your expensive operations in the form’s constructor, so that when it’s time to show the form, it already has the data it needs to render. Also look into SuspendLayout/ResumeLayout methods.

But none of these solutions will be as graceful as using a different thread to perform expensive operations.