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POHow to allow a google desktop gadget to update its UI (handle user input) whilst the underlying code is busy/blocked?
 

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  1. POHow to allow a google desktop gadget to update its UI (handle user input) whilst the underlying code is busy/blocked?
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    <p>Take your average google desktop gadget. Add the following code:</p> <blockquote> <pre><code> debug.trace("go!"); for (var i = 0; i &lt; 100000000; i++) { // google desktop stops responding j = 12 * i; } debug.trace("finished"); </code></pre> </blockquote> <p>All google desktop gadgets lock up / freeze for the duration, including the gadget the code is running in (the normal double-shift shortcut doesn't work, you can't move any gadgets or interact with them in any other way; the systray icon is responsive, but doesn't do anything - e.g. the options page isn't loaded till the code has finished).</p> <p>I'm looking for a way around this general situation (my case is I'm making external function calls via a DLL that take a long time to return, see <a href="http://code.google.com/apis/desktop/docs/script.html#gmanifest" rel="nofollow">gmanifest</a> 'install' element).</p> <p>Having the calls (/ above code) triggered via setInterval / setTimeout doesn't seem to make any difference, nor does any code that would normally be called by a timer get executed whilst the long call is taking place.</p> <p>I'm assuming this is possible, because when you try the following code in place of the busy loop or my blocking external function call, nothing locks up:</p> <blockquote> <pre><code> var wsh = new ActiveXObject("WScript.Shell"); wsh.run("cmd.exe",1,true); // true = block until program has exited // UI responds in this period debug.trace("finished"); // occurs when cmd.exe is closed </code></pre> </blockquote> <p>I don't know what the difference between these three cases is. Any ideas, and more importantly, any way around it?</p> <p>Thoughts:</p> <ul> <li><p>The busy loop isn't blocking as such, but just using up all processor time so nothing happens hence isn't representative (seems unlikely) [edit: no, it is blocking]</p></li> <li><p>The DLL or way I'm using it is broken or wrong, respectively (could be, I can add more details if needed) [edit: seems not, just a normal blocking call]</p></li> <li><p>google gadgets "knows about" wscript.shell and carries on going whilst "run" is blocking (seems unlikely) [edit: unanswered!]</p></li> <li><p>I could explicitly spawn a worker thread for the blocking code (I can't find anything on explicit thread control in gadgets) [edit: not possible; javascript has a single thread]</p></li> <li><p>Wrap up the block call in an external program, poll file for status updates (see answer)</p></li> </ul>
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