Introduction into threading in .NET (this article)

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/threads/ThreadingDotNet.aspx

Introduction

Im afraid to say that I am just one of those people that unless I am doing something, I am bored. So now that I finally feel I have learnt tha basics of WPF, it is time to turn my attention to other matters.

I have a long list of things that demand my attention such as (WCF/WF/CLR Via C# version 2 book), but I recently went for (and got, but turned it down in the end) which required me to know a lot about threading. Whilst I consider myself to be pretty good with threading, I thought yeah I'm ok at threading but I could always be better. So as a result of that I have decided to dedicate myself to writing a series of articles on threading in .NET. This series will undoubtely owe much to an excellent Visual Basic .NET Threading Handbook that I bought that is nicely filling the MSDN gaps for me and now you.

I suspect this topic will range from simple to medium to advanced, and it will cover a lot of stuff that will be in MSDN, but I hope to give it my own spin also.

I dont know the exact schedule, but it may end up being something like

• Introduction into threading in .NET (this article)
• Lifecyle Of Threads/Threading Opportunities/Traps
• Synchronization
• Thread Pools
• Threading in UIs (Winforms / WPF / Silverlight)
• The Future Of Threading (Task Parallel Library)

Simple Window Template

1. #include
2. 
   
3. 
   
4. // Step 4: the Window Procedure
5. LRESULT CALLBACK WndProc(HWND hwnd, UINT msg, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam)
6. {
7. switch(msg)
8. {
9. case WM_CREATE:
10. 
    
11. break;
12. case WM_CLOSE:
13. DestroyWindow(hwnd);
14. break;
15. case WM_DESTROY:
16. PostQuitMessage(0);
17. break;
18. default:
19. return DefWindowProc(hwnd, msg, wParam, lParam);
20. }
21. return 0;
22. }
23. 
    
24. int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,
25. LPSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow)
26. {
27. WNDCLASSEX wc;
28. HWND hwnd;
29. MSG Msg;
30. static char appName[] = "Your Application";
31. 
    
32. //Step 1: Registering the Window Class
33. wc.cbSize = sizeof(WNDCLASSEX);
34. wc.style = CS_HREDRAW | CS_VREDRAW;
35. wc.lpfnWndProc = WndProc;
36. wc.cbClsExtra = 0;
37. wc.cbWndExtra = 0;
38. wc.hInstance = hInstance;
39. wc.hIcon = LoadIcon(NULL, IDI_APPLICATION);
40. wc.hCursor = LoadCursor(NULL, IDC_ARROW);
41. wc.hbrBackground = (HBRUSH)(COLOR_WINDOW+1);
42. wc.lpszMenuName = NULL;
43. wc.lpszClassName = appName;
44. wc.hIconSm = LoadIcon(NULL, IDI_APPLICATION);
45. 
    
46. if(!RegisterClassEx(&wc))
47. {
48. MessageBox(NULL, "Window Registration Failed!", "Error!",
49. MB_ICONERROR | MB_OK);
50. return 0;
51. }
52. 
    
53. // Step 2: Creating the Window
54. hwnd = CreateWindowEx(
55. WS_EX_CLIENTEDGE,
56. appName,
57. "Your Window Title",
58. WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW,
59. CW_USEDEFAULT, CW_USEDEFAULT, 400, 400,
60. NULL, NULL, hInstance, NULL);
61. 
    
62. if(hwnd == NULL)
63. {
64. MessageBox(NULL, "Window Creation Failed!", "Error",
65. MB_ICONERROR | MB_OK);
66. return 0;
67. }
68. 
    
69. ShowWindow(hwnd, nCmdShow);
70. UpdateWindow(hwnd);
71. 
    
72. // Step 3: The Message Loop
73. while(GetMessage(&Msg, NULL, 0, 0) > 0)
74. {
75. TranslateMessage(&Msg);
76. DispatchMessage(&Msg);
77. }
78. return int(Msg.wParam);
79. }

How to set window topmost in .net 2003 for CE?

this.BringToFront and this.Focus() do not work for CE. Have to use C++ way of TOPMOST and SetWindowPos(..) as following:

[DllImport("coredll.dll", EntryPoint="GetCapture", SetLastError=true)]
private static extern IntPtr GetCapture();
[DllImport("coredll.dll", EntryPoint="SetWindowPos", SetLastError=true)]
private static extern bool SetWindowPos(
IntPtr hWnd,
IntPtr hWndInsertAfter,
int x,
int y,
int cx,
int cy,
uint uFlags);

public IntPtr GetControlHandle(Control ctl)
{
ctl.Capture = true;
IntPtr hWnd = GetCapture();
ctl.Capture = false;
return hWnd;
}



///

/// Set a form to the top most position.
///

/// The form to set topmost.
/// Returns true if successful, false otherwise.
public bool SetWindowTopMost(Form frm)
{
return SetWindowTopMost(frm, true);
}

///

/// Set a form to the top most position.
///

/// The form to set topmost.
/// True to set the form topmost, false to set the form to no topmost.
/// Returns true if successful, false otherwise.
public bool SetWindowTopMost(Form frm, bool bTopMost)
{
// Get the handle to the form entered.
IntPtr hWnd = GetControlHandle(frm);
IntPtr hWndInsertAfter = IntPtr.Zero;

if (bTopMost)
{
// Set the topmost flag.
hWndInsertAfter = new IntPtr(HWND_TOPMOST);
}
else
{
// Set the no topmost flag.
hWndInsertAfter = new IntPtr(HWND_NOTOPMOST);
}

return SetWindowPos(hWnd, hWndInsertAfter, 0, 0, 0, 0, SWP_NOSIZE | SWP_NOMOVE);
}