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- <h1 id="event-processing-and-the-application-main-loop">Event Processing and the Application Main Loop</h1>
- <p>The method <code>Application.Run</code> that we covered before will wait for
- events from either the keyboard or mouse and route those events to the
- proper view.</p>
- <p>The job of waiting for events and dispatching them in the
- <code>Application</code> is implemented by an instance of the
- <a href=""><code>MainLoop</code></a>
- class.</p>
- <p>Mainloops are a common idiom in many user interface toolkits so many
- of the concepts will be familiar to you if you have used other
- toolkits before.</p>
- <p>This class provides the following capabilities:</p>
- <ul>
- <li>Keyboard and mouse processing</li>
- <li>.NET Async support</li>
- <li>Timers processing</li>
- <li>Invoking of UI code from a background thread</li>
- <li>Idle processing handlers</li>
- <li>Possibility of integration with other mainloops.</li>
- <li>On Unix systems, it can monitor file descriptors for readability or writability.</li>
- </ul>
- <p>The <code>MainLoop</code> property in the the
- <a href="../api/Terminal.Gui/Terminal.Gui.Application.html"><code>Application</code></a>
- provides access to these functions.</p>
- <p>When your code invokes <code>Application.Run (Toplevel)</code>, the application
- will prepare the current
- <a href="../api/Terminal.Gui/Terminal.Gui.Toplevel.html"><code>Toplevel</code></a> instance by
- redrawing the screen appropriately and then calling the mainloop to
- run. </p>
- <p>You can configure the Mainloop before calling Application.Run, or you
- can configure the MainLoop in response to events during the execution.</p>
- <p>The keyboard inputs is dispatched by the application class to the
- current TopLevel window this is covered in more detail in the
- <a href="keyboard.html">Keyboard Event Processing</a> document.</p>
- <h2 id="async-execution">Async Execution</h2>
- <p>On startup, the <code>Application</code> class configured the .NET Asynchronous
- machinery to allow you to use the <code>await</code> keyword to run tasks in the
- background and have the execution of those tasks resume on the context
- of the main thread running the main loop.</p>
- <p>Once you invoke <code>Application.Main</code> the async machinery will be ready
- to use, and you can merely call methods using <code>await</code> from your main
- thread, and the awaited code will resume execution on the main
- thread. </p>
- <h2 id="timers-processing">Timers Processing</h2>
- <p>You can register timers to be executed at specified intervals by
- calling the <a href=""><code>AddTimeout</code></a> method, like this:</p>
- <pre><code class="lang-csharp">void UpdateTimer ()
- {
- time.Text = DateTime.Now.ToString ();
- }
- var token = Application.MainLoop.AddTimeout (TimeSpan.FromSeconds (20), UpdateTimer);
- </code></pre><p>The return value from AddTimeout is a token value that you can use if
- you desire to cancel the timer before it runs:</p>
- <pre><code class="lang-csharup">Application.MainLoop.RemoveTimeout (token);
- </code></pre><h2 id="idle-handlers">Idle Handlers</h2>
- <p>You can register code to be executed when the application is idling
- and there are no events to process by calling the
- <a href=""><code>AddIdle</code></a>
- method. This method takes as a parameter a function that will be
- invoked when the application is idling. </p>
- <p>Idle functions should return <code>true</code> if they should be invoked again,
- and <code>false</code> if the idle invocations should stop.</p>
- <p>Like the timer APIs, the return value is a token that can be used to
- cancel the scheduled idle function from being executed.</p>
- <h2 id="threading">Threading</h2>
- <p>Like other UI toolkits, Terminal.Gui is generally not thread safe.
- You should avoid calling methods in the UI classes from a background
- thread as there is no guarantee that they will not corrupt the state
- of the UI application. </p>
- <p>Generally, as there is not much state, you will get lucky, but the
- application will not behave properly.</p>
- <p>You will be served better off by using C# async machinery and the
- various APIs in the <code>System.Threading.Tasks.Task</code> APIs. But if you
- absolutely must work with threads on your own you should only invoke
- APIs in Terminal.Gui from the main thread.</p>
- <p>To make this simple, you can use the <code>Application.MainLoop.Invoke</code>
- method and pass an <code>Action</code>. This action will be queued for execution
- on the main thread at an appropriate time and will run your code
- there.</p>
- <p>For example, the following shows how to properly update a label from a
- background thread:</p>
- <pre><code>void BackgroundThreadUpdateProgress ()
- {
- Application.MainLoop.Invoke (() => {
- progress.Text = $"Progress: {bytesDownloaded/totalBytes}";
- });
- }
- </code></pre><h2 id="integration-with-other-main-loop-drivers">Integration With Other Main Loop Drivers</h2>
- <p>It is possible to run the main loop in a way that it does not take
- over control of your application, but rather in a cooperative way.</p>
- <p>To do this, you must use the lower-level APIs in <code>Application</code>: the
- <code>Begin</code> method to prepare a toplevel for execution, followed by calls
- to <code>MainLoop.EventsPending</code> to determine whether the events must be
- processed, and in that case, calling <code>RunLoop</code> method and finally
- completing the process by calling <code>End</code>.</p>
- <p>The method <code>Run</code> is implemented like this:</p>
- <pre><code>void Run (Toplevel top)
- {
- var runToken = Begin (view);
- RunLoop (runToken);
- End (runToken);
- }
- </code></pre><h2 id="unix-file-descriptor-monitoring">Unix File Descriptor Monitoring</h2>
- <p>On Unix, it is possible to monitor file descriptors for input being
- available, or for the file descriptor being available for data to be
- written without blocking the application.</p>
- <p>To do this, you on Unix, you can cast the <code>MainLoop</code> instance to a
- <a href=""><code>UnixMainLoop</code></a>
- and use the <code>AddWatch</code> method to register an interest on a particular
- condition.</p>
- </article>
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