threaded gtk apps / panel stability

[Benedikt Meurer]

Jasper Huijsmans wrote:
> Hey all,
> 
> There have been some stability problems with the panel that are possibly
> related to thread usage. 
> 
> A different approach to using threads with gtk apps is described here: 
> http://tiago.blogdns.org/gtk_threads.html
> 
> Would that be something the panel could use, instead of all the
> gdk_thread_enter()/leave() stuff? No idea if it would be more robust. Any
> ideas? Brian, Benedikt?

Kinda nice trick to use g_idle_add()/g_timeout_add() to perform gui 
operations from other threads, tho I doubt that this will be easier to 
handle for panel plugins. I guess it will cause additional confusion for 
the panel plugin writer.

I tend to say 'lets drop the thread stuff from the panel again', it 
causes more problems and adds little value. Threaded GUI programming is 
always pain. The KDE people realized that years ago.

On the other side I like to be able to use threads in panel plugins, but 
if we decide to keep the threaded panel we need to offer either a good 
document that describes the changes for plugin writers or we need a good 
panel API that hides the difficult stuff from the plugin writer (too 
late for 4.2 IMHO). Of course, having both things shouldn't hurt either :-)

> cheers,
> 	Jasper

regards,
Benedikt