Multi-threaded GUI

["Melvin Newman" <zexelon gmail com>]

I am a new programmer to GTK and I am trying to wrap my head around several things. The biggest being the fact that GTK main is single threaded and blocking. I am using the gtkmm package.

Basicaly what happens is that when a user presses a connect button on my interface, the callback fires up a seperate pthread to handle the connection. Unfortunately I want this new thread to update the interface regularly to let the user know it is trying to connect.

I have tried using the following code:

while(Gtk::Main::events_pending() )
{
       Gtk::Main::iteration();
}


Now GTK keeps complaining that it is being told to update from outside the Gtk::Main loop, and the program is EXTREMELY flaky, usualy dying on a signal 11 shortely. 

How do I get the main loop to update the interface without killing everything? I have tried finding information on the Glib::Dispatcher system but there is really no information on how it works, or how to use it. 

Any help would be greatly apreciated.

Sincerely
Melvin Newman