Extending FrameworkElement 2: Easily Set Wait and Default Cursors

7/24/2009

The second part of this series will cover adding Default and Wait cursors to our application with a simple call to SetWaitCursor or SetDefaultCursor respectively. This is good to use before and after lengthy calls to let the user quickly know the application is doing something. An example might be to call SetWaitCursor, do a DB Query, wait for the results, then call SetDefaultCursor.

We are going to add the following two methods as well as a using statement for System.Windows.Input (for the Cursor object). I have added comments so we can consume this library in other applications and add descriptive meaning to the Intellisense.

        #region Cursor Extension Methods
        /// <summary>
        /// Sets the Wait Cursor for the FrameworkElement
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="elUI">The FrameworkElement being extended</param>
        public static void SetWaitCursor(this FrameworkElement elUI)
        {
            elUI.Cursor = Cursors.Wait;
        }
        /// <summary>
        /// Sets the Default Cursor for the FrameworkElement
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="elUI">The FrameworkElement being extended</param>
        public static void SetDefaultCursor(this FrameworkElement elUI)
        {
            elUI.Cursor = Cursors.Arrow;
        }
        #endregion

Now to test the new methods, lets switch back to our code behind file and replace the existing btnTest_Click method code with the following:

    private void btnTest_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
    {
        this.SetWaitCursor();
        Thread.Sleep(5000);
        this.SetDefaultCursor();
    }

Run the application and click the bottom button to test the new functionality. The cursor will switch to the Wait cursor, the thread will sleep for 5 seconds, then the cursor will be restored to the Default cursor.

Posted at 5:32 PM by Philly XAML | Category: Tips & Tricks; Demo Applications | Permalink | Comments (0)

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