CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#wpfmultithreadingdatagrid
AlonP
AlonP

Reputation: 913

How to Change DataGrid ItemsSource Without Freezing the UI Thread?

I have a list of Customers and I update my DataGrid's ItemsSource to contain the customers list.
The problem is that after changing the ItemsSource, the thread update all binding targets to the values in each customer object, and this action freezes the UI for more than 30 seconds.
To solve this I tried to change the ItemsSource property in another Thread but the new thread can not access the datagrid control which owned by the UI thread.
If I put the ItemsSource changing code in Invoke methode the UI will freeze again. 

//The following code is handled in another thread

// Geting a list of Customers
List<Customer> customers = manager.AllCustomers.SearchCustomers(fName, lName, address, city, tz, phone);

//Changing the DataGrid ItemsSource
Dispatcher.Invoke(() => customersSearchResultsDG.ItemsSource = customers);
//UI Thread is freezing until ItemsSource Changing complete

p.s
The amount of time it thinks not really bother me because I created a loading animation control.. but the freezing makes the animation stuck and that is what i'm trying to fix.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1727

Answers (1)

Sheridan
Sheridan

Reputation: 69979

When the UI thread in a WPF Application is busy, the UI will appear to freeze. There is nothing that can be done about that, but to avoid this situation, we typically do as much long running work as possible in background threads. However, as you have discovered, you cannot manipulate UI elements from a background thread, so there is only so much that we can do.

Other things that we can do to minimise the amount of time that the UI thread is busy is to use Virtualization, container recycling, freezing resources and/or optimise used Templates. You can find out more about this from the Optimizing Performance: Controls page on MSDN.

However, with the small number of items in your collection, it would seem to me that either you are loading and/or preparing your data extremely inefficiently, or you have incredibly large and complex DataTemplates to define your items. The links provided above should help you if your problem is the latter.

Upvotes: 1

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