threading and forms

Question

is there any way to dynamically create a form and have it run in its own thread? I am creating a form from a thread that unfortunately has a blocking process in it. so when that thread is blocked the form locks up. I've been experimenting around a little but so far not much luck. thanks

taertman · Answer

sorry maybe i didnt explain it correctly. The 2nd thread creates the background form it then goes back to read data via a udp port (blocking read) causeing the background form created by the 2nd thread to freeze until it is able to read data from the port. I tried creating an event on the mainprogram thread to create this form (called by the 2nd thread when its appropriate) but evidently the code from this event gets handles by the 2nd thread and not by the main program thread like i had hoped. so since the background forms are small in code size im thinking my only option is to precreate a set number of them on the main program thread and form.show() them from the 2nd thread when its appropriate. Ideally i'd like to be able to create this background form and give it its own thread somehow.

spgilmore · Answer

You can set a property of an object in another thread as long as access to that member is serialized with a monitor or lock{} or if it is a static member. At this point I'm not sure I'm going to be any help because I don't think I understand your situation very well. This is what I pictured. Main program thread | v SecondThread (created by main program thread) | v BackgroundForm that blocks (created by SecondThread. What I don't understand is why it's a problem for the background form to block. It's in its own thread so it blocks the second thread but shouldn't block the main program thread. Have I misunderstood the situation?

taertman · Answer

currently that process is in its own thread. it processes inbound data via a socket and sends it to a textbox in a form. depending on certain conditions it will create a new form. it proceedes to create the new form and then 'blocks' via returning to listen to that port. from what i've read objects that are created by a particular thread are owned by that thread. I would have liked to call an event on another class (running in a seperate thread) to create a form but this doesnt work either. so what im searching for is an event driven type signel i can send to a class running in a seperate thread while passing some initialization parameters to create the form.

spgilmore · Answer

It doesn't matter what thread the form is in. If that thread is blocked the form is blocked. You have to remove the part of the form that blocks and put THAT in its own thread.