hbr@elctr.UUCP (Hans B| Randgaard) (08/22/89)
Hello folks.
I have made some X userinterface, using the X-toolkit(X11R2) for
a program which makes some analysis(unimportant here) on some files.
However the analysis is invoked by pushing a command-button and it
can take quite some time(several minutes) before the analysis is
through.
What I want to do is to make the analysis run as a parallel process
so that the user can make other things(maybe kill the analysis
clicking another button) during the analysis. I have made several
fork experiments, but I always(of course) get a copy of the whole
widget tree, which I certainly don't need or want.
My question is:
Are there some way to invoke background processes still using X to
control everything, but without getting a copy of the widgets ?
--
------ Hans Boe Randgaard - ElektronikCentralen - Denmark ------
E-mail: hbr@elctr.dk, Phone: +45 42 86 77 22, Fax: +45 42 86 58 98
Address: Venlighedsvej 4 ** |_| |) |) **
2970 Hoersholm - DENMARK ** | | |) |\ **klee@gilroy.pa.dec.com (Ken Lee) (08/23/89)
In article <140@elctr.UUCP>, hbr@elctr.UUCP (Hans B| Randgaard) writes: > Are there some way to invoke background processes still using X to > control everything, but without getting a copy of the widgets ? Take a look at programs like xmh (in the MIT X distribution). It uses widgets for the user interface, but non-X programs for the "real work". The widget callback functions just fork/exec the non-X programs. This is, of course, very operating system dependent. Ken Lee DEC Western Software Laboratory, Palo Alto, Calif. Internet: klee@decwrl.dec.com uucp: uunet!decwrl!klee
mayer@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM (Niels Mayer) (08/23/89)
In article <140@elctr.UUCP> hbr@elctr.UUCP (Hans B| Randgaard) writes: >Are there some way to invoke background processes still using X to >control everything, but without getting a copy of the widgets ? Xt programming is event-driven programming, so why not make your background process send it's results back to your application by running it in a subshell (see popen()) and having any output from the pipe get processed as an "event" via XtAddInput(). If you don't like it running in a subshell, make a server/client interface. Take a look at xwebster 1.0 (from x11r3 contrib tape) for an example of this approach. >However the analysis is invoked by pushing a command-button and it >can take quite some time (several minutes) before the analysis is >through. >What I want to do is to make the analysis run as a parallel process >so that the user can make other things(maybe kill the analysis >clicking another button) during the analysis. You can certainly do that with the above approach. Alternately, you can turn things upside down and do event processing once per n iterations of your analysis loop: do { sprintf(temptext, "Trying webster server at address %s ...\n", host_addr); Display_Def_Text_Append(temptext); Display_Def_Refresh(); XSync(display, FALSE); while (XtPending()) { /* since we can't get back to XtMainLoop yet-*/ XEvent event; /*-we process the events here... (yech) */ XtNextEvent(&event); XtDispatchEvent(&event); } /* iteration of time consuming operation */ ... } while (blablabla)... The above comes from xwebster 1.1 (on expo.lcs.mit.edu's contrib ftp dir) and I don't know what that XSync() is doing there... If I remember, nested event loops require r3 Xt. >I have made several >fork experiments, but I always(of course) get a copy of the whole >widget tree, which I certainly don't need or want. Scary! -- Niels "don't ask me about webster servers" Mayer.
de@comp.lancs.ac.uk (David England) (08/23/89)
In article <1719@bacchus.dec.com> klee@gilroy.pa.dec.com (Ken Lee) writes: >In article <140@elctr.UUCP>, hbr@elctr.UUCP (Hans B| Randgaard) writes: >> Are there some way to invoke background processes still using X to >> control everything, but without getting a copy of the widgets ? > >Take a look at programs like xmh (in the MIT X distribution). It uses >widgets for the user interface, but non-X programs for the "real >work". Has anyone sucessfully done this on a Sequent using m_fork ? I've tried, but any X program I link -lpps to falls over. -- uucp: ...!mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!de or: ...!uunet!comp.lancs.ac.uk!de arpa/janet: de@comp.lancs.ac.uk +44 524 65201 ex 3784 "The Bluebird of happiness long absent from his life, Ned is visited by the chicken of depression"