Hello,
I am using Ruby 1.8.7 with Tk. The code runs fine. However, a few
instructions that I set while the program is busy (basically before
starting heavy computation it sets a TkLabel to display “Busy”… and
once it’s done it sets it back to “”) do not seem to have much of an
effect.
My fear is that it might be a problem like refreshing, whereby Tk
doesn’t receive the instruction until it’s too late. Is there a way to
flush all the instructions to Tk and let it do its magic before
continuing running my code?
Thanks.
Diego
From: Diego V. [email protected]
Subject: Ruby/Tk refresh problem
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 19:39:15 +0900
Message-ID:
[email protected]
I am using Ruby 1.8.7 with Tk. The code runs fine. However, a few
instructions that I set while the program is busy (basically before
starting heavy computation it sets a TkLabel to display “Busy”… and
once it’s done it sets it back to “”) do not seem to have much of an
effect.
Maybe, you call the heavy computation IN a callback.
If so, that is a very bad way on event-driven programing.
The heavy part blocks the eventloop.
And then, the GUI cannot receive any events.
That is, the GUI seems to freeze.
A callback procedure should return as soon as possible.
One of the simple way to do that is to make a thread executing the
heavy computation.
Of course, you never join the thread in a callback.
Instead of joining, you should generate an event (TkVariable#wait may
be useful) to tell the finishing of the thread.
For example, the following is a bad sample.
require ‘tk’
l = TkLabel.new(:text=>‘MESSAGE’).pack
TkTimer.new(500, -1,
proc{l.foreground ‘black’},
proc{l.foreground ‘red’}).start
TkButton.new(:text=>‘start heavy work’,
:command=>proc{10.times{|n| sleep 1; p n}}).pack
Tk.mainloop
When clicking the button, this GUI seems to freeze.
Please compare with the following.
require ‘tk’
l = TkLabel.new(:text=>‘MESSAGE’).pack
TkTimer.new(500, -1,
proc{l.foreground ‘black’},
proc{l.foreground ‘red’}).start
TkButton.new(:text=>‘start heavy work’,
:command=>proc{Thread.new{10.times{|n| sleep 1; p
n}}}).pack
Tk.mainloop
The following is another sample.
require ‘tk’
l = TkLabel.new(:text=>‘MESSAGE’).pack
TkTimer.new(500, -1,
proc{l.foreground ‘black’},
proc{l.foreground ‘red’}).start
b = TkButton.new(:text=>‘start heavy work’,
:command=>proc{
b.state :disable
Thread.new{
10.times{|n| sleep 1; p n}
b.state :normal
}
}).pack
Tk.mainloop
Have you tried “Tk.update” call ?
Antonio
Diego V. wrote:
Hello,
I am using Ruby 1.8.7 with Tk. The code runs fine. However, a few
instructions that I set while the program is busy (basically before
starting heavy computation it sets a TkLabel to display “Busy”… and
once it’s done it sets it back to “”) do not seem to have much of an
effect.
My fear is that it might be a problem like refreshing, whereby Tk
doesn’t receive the instruction until it’s too late. Is there a way to
flush all the instructions to Tk and let it do its magic before
continuing running my code?
Thanks.
Diego