Re: Refreshing the GUI without gtk_main ()

[Chris Seaton <chris chrisseaton com>]

Russell Shaw wrote:
> Previous posts have said not to do *any* gui operations outside of the
> main gtk thread. Is there a list of what can and can't be done?

I think you can do anything, provided you use the gdk_threads_... wrapper.

An alternative is to setup a messaging system. The IO thread passes
messages to the GUI thread, so the IO thread itself never calls any GUI
functions.

Any way that you do it, your GUI must never become unresponsive as the
result of a normal operation such as reading from a file. That's
completely unacceptable, and how applications like Windows Explorer
manage to be written.

Take the Nautilus developer's approach - simply banish the idea of any
IO in the main thread.

Chris Seaton