splash screen - WPF SplashScreen with ProgressBar

Question

I have a WPF project, with a splash screen added by the Project Wizard. On the same splash screen, I want to add a progress bar style meter. Does someone have any idea how to do this?

Answer 1

Here is my scheme for doing this. My motivation for doing it this way is that I don't want to have the initialization code running on the UI Thread, and normally I want the initialization code on my App class (not a Splash screen).

Basically, I set the App StartupUri to my splash screen, which gets the ball rolling.

On the splash screen, I invoke a delegate back on the application. This is run on a worker thread. In the splash screen, I handle the EndInvoke, and close the Window.

In the application initialization delegate, I do the work, and at the end, create and open the normal main Window. During the work load, I also have a method on Slash that allows me to update progress.

OK,the code is fairly short, and doesn't include the main window code (which is unaffected by all this), but it ducks and dives with anonymous delegates, so read it carefully, and ideally play with it in the debugger.

Here is the code....

<Application x:Class="SplashScreenDemo.App"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    StartupUri="Splash.xaml">
    <Application.Resources>

    </Application.Resources>
</Application>

app code behind...

internal delegate void Invoker();
public partial class App : Application
{
    public App()
    {
        ApplicationInitialize = _applicationInitialize;
    }
    public static new App Current
    {
        get { return Application.Current as App; }
    }
    internal delegate void ApplicationInitializeDelegate(Splash splashWindow);
    internal ApplicationInitializeDelegate ApplicationInitialize;
    private void _applicationInitialize(Splash splashWindow)
    {
        // fake workload, but with progress updates.
        Thread.Sleep(500);
        splashWindow.SetProgress(0.2);

        Thread.Sleep(500);
        splashWindow.SetProgress(0.4);

        Thread.Sleep(500);
        splashWindow.SetProgress(0.6);

        Thread.Sleep(500);
        splashWindow.SetProgress(0.8);

        Thread.Sleep(500);
        splashWindow.SetProgress(1);

        // Create the main window, but on the UI thread.
        Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(DispatcherPriority.Normal, (Invoker)delegate
        {
            MainWindow = new Window1();
            MainWindow.Show();
        });           
    }
}

splash xaml (actually, nothing too interesting here...)

<Window x:Class="SplashScreenDemo.Splash"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    Title="Splash" Height="300" Width="300">
    <Grid>
        <TextBlock Height="21" Margin="91,61,108,0" VerticalAlignment="Top">Splash Screen</TextBlock>
        <ProgressBar Name="progBar" Margin="22,122,16,109" Minimum="0" Maximum="1"/>
    </Grid>
</Window>

splash code-behind...

public partial class Splash : Window
{
    public Splash()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
        this.Loaded += new RoutedEventHandler(Splash_Loaded);
    }

    void Splash_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
    {
        IAsyncResult result = null;

        // This is an anonymous delegate that will be called when the initialization has COMPLETED
        AsyncCallback initCompleted = delegate(IAsyncResult ar)
        {
            App.Current.ApplicationInitialize.EndInvoke(result);

            // Ensure we call close on the UI Thread.
            Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(DispatcherPriority.Normal, (Invoker)delegate { Close(); });
        };

        // This starts the initialization process on the Application
        result = App.Current.ApplicationInitialize.BeginInvoke(this, initCompleted, null);
    }

    public void SetProgress(double progress)
    {
        // Ensure we update on the UI Thread.
        Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(DispatcherPriority.Normal, (Invoker)delegate { progBar.Value = progress; });           
    }
}

As the work is done on a worker thread, the progress bar will update nicely, and any animation you have on the splash screen will keep the entertainment rolling.