Is there a control in windows form that would allow me to pause the ongoing serial data receiving process, because I need to check and verify the data that is being plotted on the graph. Once checked, I need to resume the process. It would be like a start.. pause..resume.. pause.. process.
Would be great if anyone could suggest me the ideal procedure for the above. Is background worker the only way to achieve this functionality?
Depending on what protocol you use you might be able to instruct the sender not to send anything while you are paused, but I think the most straight-forward approach will be to buffer the incoming data on a queue or a simple array, or something, and then just not update the screen with new data while the user is in the paused state.
My way to do such task:
actually you need to use thread for only one reason, which is to organize time EX:
WRONG:
while(true){
GetDataFromSerialPort(); // you don't know how long it takes 10ms, 56ms, 456ms ...?
DrawData(); // this plots data at randomly spaced intervals
}
RIGHT
while(true){
Thread th1 = new Thread(new ThreadStart(GetDataFromSerialPort)); // thread to acquire
th1.IsBackground = true; // new data
th1.Start();
wait(100); // main thread waits few milliseconds
Thread th2 = new Thread(new ThreadStart(DrawData)); // draw on zedGraph on other thread
th2.IsBackground = true;
th2.Start();
}
Now let's do your main quastion (pause/resume...)
you need to define a bool flag that decides your data acquisition/drawing loop:
bool isRunning = false; // initially it's stopped
public void startDrawing()
{
isRunning = true;
while(isRunning)
{
//thread to get data
//wait
//thread to draw it
//refer to the above "right" example
}
}
// Now let's set buttons work
private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if(button1.text == "START" || button1.text == "RESUME")
{
button1.text = "PAUSE";
startDrawing();
}
else
{
button.text = "RESUME";
isRunning = false;
}
}
