Refresh a WPF control

When you want to refresh an element of the GUI in WPF it is always delicate because of the decoupling graphic/functional…

The classic case of a ProgressBar:

int i = 0;
while (i < 100)
{
    this.myProgressBar.Value = i++;
    Thread.Sleep(500);
}

Unfortunately, the refreshment is only done at the end of the method. There is one solution that consists of making an extension method that will implement a Refresh using the dispatcher of the element:

public static class ExtensionMethods
{
    private static readonly Action EmptyDelegate = delegate { };
    public static void Refresh(this UIElement uiElement)
    {
        uiElement.Dispatcher.Invoke(DispatcherPriority.Render, EmptyDelegate);
    }
}

Then, you can call the Refresh method when you want:

int i = 0;
while (i < 100)
{
    this.myProgressBar.Value = i++;
    this.myProgressBar.Refresh();
    Thread.Sleep(500);
}

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