Updating UI BeginInvokeOnMainThread not reflecting immediately - xamarin.forms

Question

I am showing activity indicator after clicking login button until redirecting the user to another page, to make them understand some progress is going on. But after clicking login button Activity Indicator is not shown immediately, it is shown after few seconds,
Why its so? To reduce that delay only I am putting activity indicator...
My Code:
async void loginButtonGesture_Tapped(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Device.BeginInvokeOnMainThread(() =>
{
loadingPanel.IsRunning = true;
loadingPanel.IsVisible = true;
});
}

Answer 1

Does the method have to be async void? It seems like this particular scheduling anything on the main thread shouldn't need to be async. Try that to see if it changes anything. Also you could try to set breakpoints on the Device.BeginInvokeOnMainThread line, and the loadingPanel.IsRunning... line to see where the delay happens.

Answer 2

First of all, loginButtonGesture_Tapped() event handler is triggered by UI thread so you don't need to use Device.BeginInvokeOnMainThread(), it is already in UI thread. But since you used Device.BeginInvokeOnMainThread() here, the reason for the delay is because on Android, your code inside of BeginInvokeOnMainThread() is added to MainLooper's message queue,(your code is not executed immediately) and is executed when the UI thread is scheduled to handle its messages.
The detailed answer can be found in Xamarin document:
For iOS:
IOSPlatformServices.BeginInvokeOnMainThread() Method simply calls NSRunLoop.Main.BeginInvokeOnMainThread
public void BeginInvokeOnMainThread(Action action)
{
NSRunLoop.Main.BeginInvokeOnMainThread(action.Invoke);
}
https://developer.xamarin.com/api/member/Foundation.NSObject.BeginInvokeOnMainThread/p/ObjCRuntime.Selector/Foundation.NSObject/
You use this method from a thread to invoke the code in the specified object that is exposed with the specified selector in the UI thread. This is required for most operations that affect UIKit or AppKit as neither one of those APIs is thread safe.
The code is executed when the main thread goes back to its main loop for processing events.
For Android:
Many People think on Xamarin.Android BeginInvokeOnMainThread() method use Activity.runOnUiThread(), BUT this is NOT the case, and there is a difference between using runOnUiThread() and Handler.Post():
public final void runOnUiThread(Runnable action) {
if (Thread.currentThread() != mUiThread) {
mHandler.post(action);//<-- post message delays action until UI thread is scheduled to handle messages
} else {
action.run();//<--action is executed immediately if current running thread is UI thread.
}
}
The actual implementation of Xamarin.Android BeginInvokeOnMainThread() method can be found in AndroidPlatformServices.cs class
public void BeginInvokeOnMainThread(Action action)
{
if (s_handler == null || s_handler.Looper != Looper.MainLooper)
{
s_handler = new Handler(Looper.MainLooper);
}
s_handler.Post(action);
}
https://developer.android.com/reference/android/os/Handler.html#post(java.lang.Runnable)
As you can see, you action code is not executed immediately by Handler.Post(action). It is added to the Looper's message queue, and is handled when the UI thread's scheduled to handle its message.