There is only one UI thread. What you need to do is to load the data in the DataTable on a different thread.
If you want to show progress to the DataTable loading along the way (either directly, or through a ProgressBar or some other mechanism), the BackgroundWorker is a fairly straight-forward way to do that.
UPDATE: Very Simple Background Worker example
Here is a fairly simple example. It adds 100 random numbers to a collection, pausing the thread for a short time between each to simulate a long loading process. You can simply cut and paste this into a test project of your own to see it work.
The thing to notice is that the heavy lifting (the stuff that takes a while) is done in the DoWork, while all UI updates are done in ProgressChanged and RunWorkerCompleted. In fact, a separate list (numbers) is created in the DoWork handler because the global mNumbers collection is on the UI thread, and can’t interact in the DoWork handler.
XAML
<Button x:Name="btnGenerateNumbers"
Grid.Row="1"
HorizontalAlignment="Center"
VerticalAlignment="Center"
Content="Generate Numbers" />
C# Code-Behind
BackgroundWorker bgWorker = new BackgroundWorker();
ObservableCollection<int> mNumbers = new ObservableCollection<int>();
public Window1()
{
InitializeComponent();
bgWorker.DoWork +=
new DoWorkEventHandler(bgWorker_DoWork);
bgWorker.ProgressChanged +=
new ProgressChangedEventHandler(bgWorker_ProgressChanged);
bgWorker.RunWorkerCompleted +=
new RunWorkerCompletedEventHandler(bgWorker_RunWorkerCompleted);
bgWorker.WorkerReportsProgress = true;
btnGenerateNumbers.Click += (s, e) => UpdateNumbers();
this.DataContext = this;
}
void bgWorker_RunWorkerCompleted(object sender, RunWorkerCompletedEventArgs e)
{
progress.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed;
lstItems.Opacity = 1d;
btnGenerateNumbers.IsEnabled = true;
}
void bgWorker_ProgressChanged(object sender, ProgressChangedEventArgs e)
{
List<int> numbers = (List<int>)e.UserState;
foreach (int number in numbers)
{
mNumbers.Add(number);
}
progress.Value = e.ProgressPercentage;
}
void bgWorker_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
Random rnd = new Random();
List<int> numbers = new List<int>(10);
for (int i = 1; i <= 100; i++)
{
// Add a random number
numbers.Add(rnd.Next());
// Sleep from 1/8 of a second to 1 second
Thread.Sleep(rnd.Next(125, 1000));
// Every 10 iterations, report progress
if ((i % 10) == 0)
{
bgWorker.ReportProgress(i, numbers.ToList<int>());
numbers.Clear();
}
}
}
public ObservableCollection<int> NumberItems
{
get { return mNumbers; }
}
private void UpdateNumbers()
{
btnGenerateNumbers.IsEnabled = false;
mNumbers.Clear();
progress.Value = 0;
progress.Visibility = Visibility.Visible;
lstItems.Opacity = 0.5;
bgWorker.RunWorkerAsync();
}