Question

This is my first post here, but I’ve using this site regularly to help me with my own app’s, and I should say that this site has been a great help to me, so thanks to everyone.

Now my question:
I’m developing my first software app that exchanges data between a sql server and the app itself. It’s beeing developed in C#. Saving or retreiving data from the sql server database is no problem.
What I want is a way to inform the user of the delay between the local machine (where the app is installed) and the server. I can make some animations or simply display some text messages. What I need help with is how to create the code that activates/fires/runs when that server communication time is running.

If you can’t understand the idea, picture a video game. When it’s loading (in some games) you can see the loading screen before the game starts. I need some code that displays that “loading window” when the the app is downloading or uploading data from/to the server.

I would appreciate any code example or web site recommendation.

PS: Sorry for the extensive text, but I want to make sure everyone understand so I don’t have to repeat it again 😛

Answer 1

First let me thank you for your replies.

Toby your answer got me thinking about thread monitoring my sql connections but it was a bit tricky and confusing since the app is still in develop and will use a lot more connections.

S.Amani answer it wasn’t quite what I want, but thanks to that I found a easier way. I created a form (could be anything else), placed a label saying: Saving To Data Base, took out the top bar, defined location and defined it’s parent to be disabled when shown and enabled when closed. The following code is what I put inside my DataBaseInteractionClass

private Wait myCustomWaitDialog = new Wait(); // My Waiting form

private void SaveToDatabase(myObjectToSave obj) // Method called to save data do DB
{
    // Create the connections and queries
    (...)
    // This is what I did
    // Show Waiting Form
    myCustomWaitDialog.Show();
    // Instanciate the command that will carry the query and to DB
    SqlCommand command = new SqlCommand(Queries.GetData(code), conn);
    // This is important
    //Create event that will fire when the command completes
    command.StatementCompleted += new StatementCompletedEventHandler(command_StatementCompleted);
    // Execute the transaction
    SqlDataReader reader = command.ExecuteReader();
    // Rest of the code (validations, close connections, try/catch, etc
    (...)
}

void command_StatementCompleted(object sender, StatementCompletedEventArgs e)
{
    // This is the method that closes my Waiting Dialog 
    myCustomWaitDialog.CloseDialog();
    myCustomWaitDialog.Dispose();
}

It’s not quite what I want yet, but is the best solution that I found so far. For now it will do 🙂
Anyway, thanks for the replies and I hope this helps someone else.