Question

Sometimes I need to call WCF service in Silverlight and block UI until it returns. Sure I can do it in three steps:

1. Setup handlers and block UI
2. Call service
3. Unblock UI when everything is done.

However, I’d like to add DoSomethingSync method to service client class and just call it whenever I need.

Is it possible? Has anyone really implemented such a method?

UPDATE: Looks like the answer is not to use sync calls at all. Will look for some easy to use pattern for async calls. Take a look at this post (taken from comments) for more.

Answer 1

Here’s the point; you shouldn’t do sync IO in Silverlight. Stop fighting it! Instead:

• disable any critical parts of the UI
• start async IO with callback
• (…)
• in the callback, process the data and update/re-enable the UI

As it happens, I’m actively working on ways to make the async pattern more approachable (in particular with Silverlight in mind). Here’s a first stab, but I have something better up my sleeve ;-p