Gauge use

Desktop wxRuby
1

Hi,

I am using the Gauge for the first time, and am confused on it’s use. I
want to use it to measure the progress of copying certain files from one
location to another. It is inside a Frame. The problem is, that if I
try
to update the position after Frame.show, the program ends. Can anyone
link
to an example? (The included bigdemo.rb didn’t help, because it uses a
Timer
to change the position)

Thanks,
Jonah

2

It would be helpful, if you provided a minimalistic version of your
program,
demonstrating the problem, so that we can properly diagnose it.

3

Sorry, never mind. It was an error in my code. On a side note, how
does one loop through a process while moving the gauge, without freezing
the program? If I loop through copying some files, it still moves the
gauge, but has a waiting cursor and is stuck. Is there a way to make it
do the operation, but not freeze?

4

Jonah D. wrote:

how does one loop through a process while moving the gauge, without freezing
the program? If I loop through copying some files, it still moves the
gauge, but has a waiting cursor and is stuck. Is there a way to make it
do the operation, but not freeze?

There are several different ways to deal with long-running background
tasks. Probably the easiest one for this situation - where you have a
job that breaks down naturally into smaller pieces (individual files) -
is to use evt_idle. This is called whenever there is processing time
free. It would go something like this:

def initialize
…
evt_idle :on_idle
end

def on_idle
if have_files_to_copy
copy_a_file
update_progress_bar
end
end

This should allow the task to progress in chunks while keeping the GUI
responsive.

A more general approach to dealing with long-running tasks is to run
them in a background Thread. But this is considerably more complicated
for several reasons - eg you should not make GUI update calls from
subordinate threads. There are previous discussions and samples about
using Threads in wxRuby if that’s the way you want to go.

alex

5

Perfect! It works now. Thanks :slight_smile: