http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=372401


in reply to Keeping the user informed: A Tk/Threads question

Good question. If you can spread your processing in smaller bits and you can get the smaller bits called from the MainLoop, everything will work. The way I do it in one application is that I build my own MainLoop:

use Tk::Event qw(DONT_WAIT); while (1) { if ($self->run) { # test if we need to process $self->process_a_bit() # process a tiny bit } return if $self->quit; # test if quit status was set DoOneEvent(DONT_WAIT); # do normal Tk event select undef,undef,undef,0.0001; # wait for a bit }
I did this, because my processing was not easily adjusted into the normal Tk::Eventloop processing and it needed to be called a lot ("live" 44Kz audio stream processing, with 100 samples per process_a_bit call)

If you want to go this route, you want to adjust the timing of the select() and process_a_bit() calls until your GUI and processing run fast enough, and it doesn't lock up the whole machine when there is no processing being done :-)

Alternatively, if you're able to run your processing based on file events or signals, you can take a look at the Tk::Eventloop documentation for registering extra events in the normal MainLoop.

Oh yes, and you want something like Tk::ProgressBar but you probably know that already :-)