gamedevlists-windows

[GD-Windows] Updates in a modal dialog loop

[Brian H. <ho...@bo...>]

I have a dialog box (MFC) that does processing and that periodically 
needs to pump the message loop so that paints, etc. can propagate.  In 
other words.  What is the right way to pump the loop?  I see that 
there's RunModalLoop(), EndModalLoop(), and ContinueModal(), but I 
don't see examples of how they're used and I'm not even sure if 
they're the right direction.

In a regular windows loop I'd do some work then call 
Get/Translate/DispatchMessage() periodically to get a similar effect, 
but there doesn't seem to be a corresponding facility here.

Thanks,

Brian

Re: [GD-Windows] Updates in a modal dialog loop

[Brian H. <ho...@bo...>]

Doh, left out some important information.

First, the dialog is modal.  Second, it actually does its work in a 
separate thread along the lines of:

while ( !done )
{
   update_some_stuff();
   update_controls_to_reflect_changes();
}

The problem (I think) is that the updated stuff is happening in that 
separate thread, in parallel to whatever stuff the regular Windows/MFC 
dialog modal loop is doing.  It checks for cancellation periodically 
(assume that I haven't screwed up the app's synchronization with 
itself, but since I'm unsure what the sync rules are for MFC, heaven 
help me).

I'm hesitant to use a timer for this, since it's one of those "run as 
fast as you can" type things that might under/overrun a timer's 
interval.

Brian