Re: Displaying a popup before the main window

[Emmanuele Bassi <ebassi gmail com>]

On Wed, 2010-09-15 at 11:45 +0100, Dave Howorth wrote:
> Emmanuele Bassi wrote:
> > in this case, spinning the main loop is just masking the fact that
> > you're blocking the main loop. the correct way to deal with this is *to
> > stop blocking the main loop*.
>
> We are discussing a splash screen that is shown during initialization
> while the GUI is being constructed and before the main loop is reached.

the premise is, in this case, irrelevant: you're blocking the main loop,
spinning it is pointless and dangerous.

actually, by showing a splash screen you're *delaying* the start up of
your application: don't use splash screens. it's no 1997 any more.

if your application starts slowly, bring up the UI as soon as possible
and fill it up with real data lazily; using a splash screen is just
papering over the issue that you're blocking the user because. wait,
that's *exactly* like manually spinning the main loop! who would have
thought.

> You're proposing a complicated alternative mechanism and to what end,
> I'm not sure.

my end is to ensure people write *correct* application code, and use the
toolkit in the *correct* way.

>  Perhaps if you gave a reference to a good explanation of
> your rationale, instead of simply pouring scorn on people, it would be
> more helpful.

the rationale is: by spinning the main loop you're masking issues in
your application. don't do that. I thought it was clear by the amount of
scorn I used.

ciao,
 Emmanuele.

-- 
W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.name
B: http://blogs.gnome.org/ebassi