How JavaFX application thread works? - multithreading

I have a problem with Java FX application thread. Here is a pseudo-code:
showMenu();
//Contoller which waits for action(pressing button)...
showLoadingPic();
Thread.sleep(2000);
showMap();
The problem is that the sleep occurs in window which is displayed in showMenu(), showLoadingPic() is not shown at all, and at the end window in showMap() is shown.
The scene in showLoadingPic has a progress bar which runs 2 secs which is the same time as Thread.sleep(2000).
So it seems like javafx application thread blocks showLoadingPic() and showLoadingPic() runs at background.
Can somebody help me to fix this??
Thank you in advance!

There is a Java FX event dispatch thread, which handle all GUI-related tasks. You must update all UI components in this thread.
Long-running tasks, like Thread.sleep should never be executed in this thread, since windows will hang, and the GUI will be frozen.
Execute all your code in the application main thread, and perform only GUI tasks in JavaFX thread, by calling Platform.runLater.
References on this topic:
Concurrency in JavaFX, from Oracle
Related SO question

Related

DirectX drawing in other thread

I have some directx code that I want to run in second thread.
I read the following How do I run with a multithreaded device in Direct3D9 ? which says that is ok to use directx device from other thread as long as you are not using concurrently from many threads, and I am not doing that. And that you have to call CreateDevice and CreateWindow from the same thread , and some others functions like TestCooperativeLevel, Reset etc
And I am doing the following :
Create window and directx device in main thread;
Start second thread and do the rendering and updating there , basically :
update,
BeginScene,
Draw,
EndScene,
Present;
Also I care to call TestCooperativeLevel, Reset, pDevice->Release and pDirect3D->Release() from the main thread.
The problem
The code is working when I test it in debug mode. But it doesn't in relase mode i.e it seems that the rendering threads draws all fine, but my main thread seems blocked and doesn't process messages, or maybe sometimes process them very slow. If just comment the call to Present , everything is fine ( of course it doesnot draw on screen ) i.e the main thread is responsive and second thread is running too. Sooo, is there some problem when calling Present from other thread, if the window and device is created in main thread ? As I read the following Multithreading Issues such restriction has only on CreateDevice,TestCooperativeLevel and Release.
It's possible to introduce deadlocks when Present is called from a different thread as the one running the message pump.
More info here:
Multithreading and DXGI

MFC Threading Issue - The program doesnt end after all threads are completed

I have created a Single Dialog application which basically does a series of complex calculation. The application was first created as a Win32 console application and later I decided to add a progressbar and then I converted the console application to a Single Dialog based application. The dialog has a progressbar on it. in OnInitDialog() function of the dialog, I start the calculations. The calculations are running on a worker thread. This thread is created by calling _beginthreadex function. The progressbar is updated by the thread by posting messages to the Dialog by using PostMessage. After the thread has completed execution, I call CDialog::OnOK() function to close the dialog. The issue is that, even after the dialog is closed, the application is not end immediately. It takes nearly 2 seconds to close the application even though the dialog is closed.
Any help to solve this issue is highly appreciated.
Thanks.
It's because your worker thread is still running. The application will not terminate until all threads are finished running. Since your UI thread closes before the worker thread, the window may be hidden, but the process does not terminate until the worker thread has completed its work.
The worker thread might be still running. To make sure that the thread is stopped use events to signal . you can signal an event to kill the thread when the user presses close button in the dialog.
You can check whether the event is signaled inside your complex calculation (may be a loop) and break from it. Thus stopping the thread without any issues.
while(true)
{
//Some complex task
DWORD dwWaitResult;
dwWaitResult = WaitForSingleObject(hwndShutdownEvent,0);
if (WAIT_OBJECT_0 == dwWaitResult)
{
break;
}
}

Operations in separate TThread block GUI thread

I used this tutorial http://delphi.about.com/od/kbthread/a/thread-gui.htm to create a class that asynchronously downloads a file from the internet in another thread with a TDownLoadURL. I did this because I want to download a file without blocking the UI thread so the program doesn't become unresponsive during large downloads, the progress bar can update, etc.
I am having a problem because even though I have done the download in another thread (inheriting from TThread and doing the work in the Execute method) the GUI thread seems to be blocked and does not process messages until the download is finished. Here is the code for my class: http://codepad.org/nArfOPJK (it's just 99 lines, a simple class). I am executing it by this, in the event handler for a button click:
var
frame: TTProgressFrame;
dlt: TDownloadThread;
begin
dlt := TDownloadThread.Create(True);
dlt.SetFile('C:\ohayo.zip');
dlt.SetURL('http://download.thinkbroadband.com/512MB.zip');
dlt.SetFrame(frame);
dlt.SetApp(Application);
dlt.Start;
Note: The SetApp method was for when I was manually calling app.ProcessMessages from inside the UpdateDownloadProgress method of my class TDownloadThread. This would keep the GUI from being unresponsive, but it made the progress bar behave wierdly (the moving glowing light thing of aero's progress bar moving way too fast), so I removed it. I want to fix this properly, and if I have to call ProcessMessages there's really no point in multithreading it.
Can someone help me fix this problem? Thanks.
I now have the solution for you!
Calling TDownLoadURL.Execute (your call to dl.Execute in TDownloadThread) results in the action being transferred back into the main thread which is why your UI becomes unresponsive.
Instead you should call ExecuteTarget(nil) which performs no such machinations and works as you intend: the download runs on the worker thread.

How do you call the GUI thread in Silverlight from the BackgroundWorker method?

I am using a BackgroundWorker thread to do some work outside of the GUI thread in Silverlight 4. I would like to update widgets in the GUI context from the background thread, but have read warnings about doing so from Microsoft documentation. I understand that communicating from one thread to another throws an exception as only the GUI thread can update widgets, but isn't BeginInvoke provided for this:
// BackgroundWorker thread code...
Widget.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(() => Status.Text = "Hello");
However, I am getting some unpredictable results in my worker code.
What is the proper way to cross communicate with the GUI thread ? Is it by passing a results collection out of the RunWorkerCompleted method ?
Thanks,
Scott
You don't call the GUI code directly.
You must fire and event to which the UI thread subscribes. It then does the marshalling necessary to update the UI safely.
There are plenty of questions (and answers) on this. See some of the "Related" questions in the right hand side bar.

Basic QT Event handling / Threading questions?

Greetings ,
I am new to QT (4.6) and have some basic questions regarding its event mechanism.I come from Swing background so I am trying to compare it with QT.
1) Does Event-processing-loop run in seperate thread? (like EventDispatch thread in Swing) ?
2) If we open several 'QMainWindow' do they run in several threads?
3) Whats the best way to run an intensive process in a seperate thread? (like SwingWorker in Swing ? )
4) If intesive-process runs in a seperate thread ,is it possible to call UI methods like update(),repaint() from that process?
thanks in advance.
1 Event loop running in the same thread
2 All UI elements are living in the same thread the one in which your main() function executed.
3 There are QThread class which allows you to have a thread with separate event loop. There is QRunable abstract class to be able to run repeating long running tasks in separate threads using QThreadPool.
4 update() and repaint() are slots and the best way to call them from separate thread is to use queued connection with a signal in your object which lives in separate thread (read QObject::connect documentation anbout connection types)
You can find all necessary information by reading documentation of classes I've mentioned.

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