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I've been working on a new job dispatcher/scheduler for MP that may be of interest to you...

As the low down on how its implemented:

• scheduler runs in its own thread
  use a priority queue
  thread safe
  uses .NET thread pool for worker threads
  based on ideas presented by .NET 2's BackgroundWorker object
  reports correct stack for worker thread exceptions

Currently it is working very well and is very easy to work with, the major limitation right now is that it doesn't persist the outstanding jobs, something that it needs to be truly useful and suitable for use in a service.

Examples of how to schedule a job:

[code]

        Job job = new Job();

        job.DoWork += new DoWorkEventHandler(RefreshWeather);

        job.RunWorkerCompleted += new RunWorkerCompletedEventHandler(RefreshWeatherCompleted);

        job.Name = "RefreshWeather";

        job.Argument = "JAXX0085";

        job.Dispatch();

        ...

        ...

[/code]

The work handler:

[code]

        static void RefreshWeather(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)

        {

            using(WeatherReader reader = new WeatherReader((string)e.Argument))

                e.Result = reader.Read();

        }

[/code]

The completion handler:

[code]

        static void RefreshWeatherCompleted(object sender, RunWorkerCompletedEventArgs e)

        {

            try

            {

                foreach(WeatherForecast weather in (WeatherCollection)e.Result)

                {

                    Console.WriteLine("  Location: {0}", weather.Location.Name);

                    Console.WriteLine("      Time: {0}", weather.Location.Time);

                    Console.WriteLine("       Day: {0}", weather.Day);

                    Console.WriteLine("  Latitude: {0}", weather.Location.Latitude);

                    Console.WriteLine("Longtitude: {0}", weather.Location.Longtitude);

                    Console.WriteLine("   Sunrise: {0}", weather.Location.Sunrise);

                    Console.WriteLine("    Sunset: {0}", weather.Location.Sunset);

                }

            }

            catch(Exception exception)

            {

                Console.WriteLine("Application.RefreshWeatherCompleted: {0}", exception.Message);

            }

            // re-schedule for 30 minutes time           

            ((Job)sender).Dispatch(TimeSpan.FromMinutes(30));

        }

[/code]

I'm happy to zip up the code and the test app if you would like to play around with this,  once persistance has been implemented I will be presenting this to the other team members in the hope that it will be used as the defacto sheduler in MP.

At some point in the future I hope to to add ISynchronizeInvoke support for the controls used in MP to simplify manipulating UI elements from within the worker threads.

The Dispatch method allows you to work with absolute and relative times.

If it is to be used in the project then I'll also be adding support for waking the computer from standby.

Cheers,

Smirnoff.