Returning control to gtk

[Steve Waterworth <steve waterworth centra-tech co uk>]

Hi Everybody,

I am new to the world of programing in GTK so this might be a stupid
question but I have yet to find a way to do this...

Inside a callback routine from a button "clicked". I call a number of
external (an other API) function calls. I want to use a progress bar or
statusbar messages to let the user know something is happening (these
API calls can take a long time). However these widgets will only get
refreshed when my callback exits. So is there some call to get GTK to
process and update these widgets without leaving the callback function?

-- 
Regards,

Steve Waterworth
steve.waterworth@centra-tech.co.uk