Using dispatchertimer in combination with an asynchroneous call

We have an issue in our Silverlight application which uses WCF and Entity Framework, where we need to trap the event whenever a user shuts down the application by closing the web page or the browser instead of closing the silverlight application. This is in order to verify if any changes have been made, in which case we would ask the user if he wants to save before leaving.

We were able to accomplish the part which consists in trapping the closing of the web page: we wrote some code in the application object that have the web page call a method in the silverlight application object. The problem starts when in this method, we do an asynchroneous call to the Web Service to verify if changes have occured (IsDirty). We are using a DispatcherTimer to check for the return of the asynchroneous call. The problem is that the asynchroneous call never completes (in debug mode, it never ends up stepping into the _BfrServ_Customer_IsDirtyCompleted method), while it used to work fine before we added this new functionality.

You will find belowthe code we are using.

I am new to writing timers in combination with asynchroneous call so I may be doing something wrong but I cannot figure out what. I tried other things also but we without any success..

====================== CODE ==============================================

''# Code in the application object 

Public Sub New()

  InitializeComponent()

  RegisterOnBeforeUnload()

  _DispatcherTimer.Interval = New TimeSpan(0, 0, 0, 0, 500)

End Sub


Public Sub RegisterOnBeforeUnload()

  ''# Register Silverlight object for availability in Javascript.

  Const scriptableObjectName As String = "Bridge"

  HtmlPage.RegisterScriptableObject(scriptableObjectName, Me)

  ''# Start listening to Javascript event.

  Dim pluginName As String = HtmlPage.Plugin.Id

  HtmlPage.Window.Eval(String.Format("window.onbeforeunload = function () {{ var slApp = document.getElementById('{0}'); var result = slApp.Content.{1}.OnBeforeUnload(); if(resu开发者_开发问答lt.length > 0)return result;}}", pluginName, scriptableObjectName))

End Sub


Public Function OnBeforeUnload() As String

  Dim userControls As List(Of UserControl) = New List(Of UserControl)

  Dim test As Boolean = True

  If CType(Me.RootVisual, StartPage).LayoutRoot.Children.Item(0).GetType().Name = "MainPage" Then

    If Not CType(CType(Me.RootVisual, StartPage).LayoutRoot.Children.Item(0), MainPage).FindName("Tab") Is Nothing Then

      If CType(CType(Me.RootVisual, StartPage).LayoutRoot.Children.Item(0), MainPage).FindName("Tab").Items.Count >= 1 Then

        For Each item As TabItem In CType(CType(Me.RootVisual, StartPage).LayoutRoot.Children.Item(0), MainPage).Tab.Items

          If item.Content.GetType().Name = "CustomerDetailUI"

            _Item = item

            WaitHandle = New AutoResetEvent(False)

            DoAsyncCall()

            Exit

          End If

        Next

      End If

    End If

  End If

  If _IsDirty = True Then

    Return "Do you want to save before leaving."

  Else

    Return String.Empty

  End If

End Function


Private Sub DoAsyncCall()

  _Item.Content.CheckForIsDirty(WaitHandle) ''# This code resides in the CustomerDetailUI UserControl - see below for the code

End Sub


Private Sub _DispatcherTimer_Tick(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles _DispatcherTimer.Tick

  If Not _Item.Content._IsDirtyCompleted = True Then

    Exit Sub

  End If

  _DispatcherTimerRunning = False

  _DispatcherTimer.Stop()

  ProcessAsyncCallResult()

End Sub


Private Sub ProcessAsyncCallResult()

  _IsDirty = _Item.Content._IsDirty

End Sub




''# CustomerDetailUI code

Public Sub CheckForIsDirty(ByVal myAutoResetEvent As AutoResetEvent)

  _AutoResetEvent = myAutoResetEvent

  _BfrServ.Customer_IsDirtyAsync(_Customer) ''# This method initiates asynchroneous call to the web service - all the details are not shown here 

  _AutoResetEvent.WaitOne()

End Sub


Private Sub _BfrServ_Customer_IsDirtyCompleted(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As BFRService.Customer_IsDirtyCompletedEventArgs) Handles _BfrServ.Customer_IsDirtyCompleted

  If _IsDirtyFromRefesh Then

    _IsDirtyFromRefesh = False

    If e.Result = True Then

      Me.Confirm("This customer has been modified. Are you sure you want to refresh your data ? " & vbNewLine & " Your changes will be lost.", "Yes", "No", Message.CheckIsDirtyRefresh)

    End If

    Busy.IsBusy = False

  Else

    If e.Result = True Then

      _IsDirty = True

      Me.Confirm("This customer has been modified. Would you like to save?", "Yes", "No", Message.CheckIsDirty)

    Else

      Me.Tab.Items.Remove(Me.Tab.SelectedItem)

      Busy.IsBusy = False

    End If

  End If

  _IsDirtyCompleted = True

  _AutoResetEvent.Set()

End Sub

Your problem is that the DispatchTimer is trying to execute code on the same thread that you are blocking with the Wait. Hence it can't deliver the tick.

I'm not sure I'm clear why you need the timer at all. Why not simply block the UI thread (as in fact you already doing) directly in the call to OnBeforeUnload. Then have the asynchronous callback function set the wait handle after it has assigned the value of _IsDirty.

Follow the Wait with your message boxes.