interface/wx/evtloop.h

   1 /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
   2 // Name:        wx/evtloop.h
   3 // Purpose:     wxEventLoop and related classes
   4 // Author:      Vadim Zeitlin
   5 // Copyright:   (C) 2008 Vadim Zeitlin
   6 // RCS-ID:      $Id$
   7 // Licence:     wxWindows license
   8 /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
   9
  10 /**
  11     @class wxEventLoopBase
  12
  13     Base class for all event loop implementations.
  14
  15     An event loop is a class which queries the queue of native events sent
  16     to the wxWidgets application and dispatches them to the appropriate
  17     wxEvtHandlers.
  18
  19     An object of this class is created by wxAppTraits::CreateEventLoop() and
  20     used by wxApp to run the main application event loop.
  21     Temporary event loops are usually created by wxDialog::ShowModal().
  22
  23     You can create your own event loop if you need, provided that you restore
  24     the main event loop once yours is destroyed (see wxEventLoopActivator).
  25
  26     @library{wxbase}
  27     @category{appmanagement}
  28
  29     @see wxApp, wxEventLoopActivator
  30 */
  31 class wxEventLoopBase
  32 {
  33 public:
  34     /**
  35         Return the currently active (running) event loop.
  36
  37         May return @NULL if there is no active event loop (e.g. during
  38         application startup or shutdown).
  39      */
  40     static wxEventLoopBase *GetActive();
  41
  42     /**
  43         Set currently active (running) event loop.
  44
  45         Called by wxEventLoopActivator, use an instance of this class instead
  46         of calling this method directly to ensure that the previously active
  47         event loop is restored.
  48
  49         Results in a call to wxAppConsole::OnEventLoopEnter.
  50      */
  51     static void SetActive(wxEventLoopBase* loop);
  52
  53     /**
  54         Returns @true if this is the main loop executed by wxApp::OnRun().
  55     */
  56     bool IsMain() const;
  57
  58
  59     /**
  60         @name Dispatch and processing
  61     */
  62     //@{
  63
  64     /**
  65         Start the event loop, return the exit code when it is finished.
  66
  67         Logically, this method calls Dispatch() in a loop until it returns
  68         @false and also takes care of generating idle events during each loop
  69         iteration. However not all implementations of this class really
  70         implement it like this (e.g. wxGTK does not) so you shouldn't rely on
  71         Dispatch() being called from inside this function.
  72
  73         @return The argument passed to Exit() which terminated this event loop.
  74      */
  75     virtual int Run() = 0;
  76
  77     /**
  78         Return true if this event loop is currently running.
  79
  80         Notice that even if this event loop hasn't terminated yet but has just
  81         spawned a nested (e.g. modal) event loop, this method would return
  82         @false.
  83      */
  84     bool IsRunning() const;
  85
  86     /**
  87         Use this to check whether the event loop was successfully created
  88         before using it
  89      */
  90     virtual bool IsOk() const;
  91
  92     /**
  93         Exit from the loop with the given exit code.
  94      */
  95     virtual void Exit(int rc = 0) = 0;
  96
  97     /**
  98         Return true if any events are available.
  99
 100         If this method returns @true, calling Dispatch() will not block.
 101      */
 102     virtual bool Pending() const = 0;
 103
 104     /**
 105         Dispatches the next event in the windowing system event queue.
 106         Blocks until an event appears if there are none currently
 107         (use Pending() if this is not wanted).
 108
 109         This can be used for programming event loops, e.g.
 110
 111         @code
 112         while (evtloop->Pending())
 113             evtloop->Dispatch();
 114         @endcode
 115
 116         @return @false if the event loop should stop and @true otherwise.
 117
 118         @see Pending(), wxEventLoopBase
 119     */
 120     virtual bool Dispatch() = 0;
 121
 122     /**
 123         Dispatch an event but not wait longer than the specified timeout for
 124         it.
 125
 126         If an event is received before the specified @a timeout expires, it is
 127         processed and the function returns 1 normally or 0 if the event loop
 128         should quite. Otherwise, i.e. if the timeout expires, the functions
 129         returns -1 without processing any events.
 130
 131         @param timeout
 132             The maximal time to wait for the events in milliseconds.
 133
 134         @return
 135             1 if an event was processed, 0 if the event loop should quit or -1
 136             if the timeout expired.
 137      */
 138     virtual int DispatchTimeout(unsigned long timeout) = 0;
 139
 140     /**
 141         Called by wxWidgets to wake up the event loop even if it is currently
 142         blocked inside Dispatch().
 143      */
 144     virtual void WakeUp() = 0;
 145
 146     //@}
 147
 148
 149     /**
 150         @name Pending events
 151     */
 152     //@{
 153
 154     /**
 155         Process all pending events; it is necessary to call this function to
 156         process posted events.
 157
 158         This happens during each event loop iteration in GUI mode but
 159         it may be also called directly.
 160     */
 161     virtual void ProcessPendingEvents();
 162
 163     /**
 164         Returns @true if there are pending events on the internal pending event list.
 165     */
 166     bool HasPendingEvents() const;
 167
 168     /**
 169         Temporary suspends processing of the pending events.
 170
 171         @see ResumeProcessingOfPendingEvents()
 172     */
 173     void SuspendProcessingOfPendingEvents();
 174
 175     /**
 176         Resume processing of the pending events previously stopped because of a
 177         call to SuspendProcessingOfPendingEvents().
 178     */
 179     void ResumeProcessingOfPendingEvents();
 180
 181     //@}
 182
 183
 184     /**
 185         @name Idle handling
 186     */
 187     //@{
 188
 189     /**
 190         Makes sure that idle events are sent again.
 191     */
 192     virtual void WakeUpIdle();
 193
 194     /**
 195         This virtual function is called  when the application becomes idle and
 196         normally just sends wxIdleEvent to all interested parties.
 197
 198         It should return @true if more idle events are needed, @false if not.
 199     */
 200     virtual bool ProcessIdle();
 201
 202     //@}
 203
 204
 205     /**
 206         @name Yield-related hooks
 207     */
 208     //@{
 209
 210     /**
 211         Returns @true if called from inside Yield() or from inside YieldFor().
 212     */
 213     virtual bool IsYielding() const;
 214
 215     /**
 216         Yields control to pending messages in the windowing system.
 217
 218         This can be useful, for example, when a time-consuming process writes to a
 219         text window. Without an occasional yield, the text window will not be updated
 220         properly, and on systems with cooperative multitasking, such as Windows 3.1
 221         other processes will not respond.
 222
 223         Caution should be exercised, however, since yielding may allow the
 224         user to perform actions which are not compatible with the current task.
 225         Disabling menu items or whole menus during processing can avoid unwanted
 226         reentrance of code: see ::wxSafeYield for a better function.
 227         You can avoid unwanted reentrancies also using IsYielding().
 228
 229         Note that Yield() will not flush the message logs. This is intentional as
 230         calling Yield() is usually done to quickly update the screen and popping up
 231         a message box dialog may be undesirable. If you do wish to flush the log
 232         messages immediately (otherwise it will be done during the next idle loop
 233         iteration), call wxLog::FlushActive.
 234
 235         Calling Yield() recursively is normally an error and an assert failure is
 236         raised in debug build if such situation is detected. However if the
 237         @a onlyIfNeeded parameter is @true, the method will just silently
 238         return @false instead.
 239     */
 240     bool Yield(bool onlyIfNeeded = false);
 241
 242     /**
 243         Works like Yield() with @e onlyIfNeeded == @true, except that it allows
 244         the caller to specify a mask of the ::wxEventCategory values which
 245         indicates which events should be processed and which should instead
 246         be "delayed" (i.e. processed by the main loop later).
 247
 248         Note that this is a safer alternative to Yield() since it ensures that
 249         only the events you're interested to will be processed; i.e. this method
 250         helps to avoid unwanted reentrancies.
 251
 252         Note that currently only wxMSW and wxGTK do support selective yield of
 253         native events coming from the underlying GUI toolkit.
 254         wxWidgets events posted using wxEvtHandler::AddPendingEvent or
 255         wxEvtHandler::QueueEvent are instead selectively processed by all ports.
 256
 257         @see wxEvent::GetEventCategory
 258     */
 259     bool YieldFor(long eventsToProcess);
 260
 261     /**
 262         Returns @true if the given event category is allowed inside
 263         a YieldFor() call (i.e. compares the given category against the
 264         last mask passed to YieldFor()).
 265
 266         @see wxEvent::GetEventCategory
 267     */
 268     virtual bool IsEventAllowedInsideYield(wxEventCategory cat) const;
 269
 270     //@}
 271
 272
 273 protected:
 274     /**
 275         This function is called before the event loop terminates, whether this
 276         happens normally (because of Exit() call) or abnormally (because of an
 277         exception thrown from inside the loop).
 278
 279         The default implementation calls wxAppConsole::OnEventLoopExit.
 280      */
 281     virtual void OnExit();
 282 };
 283
 284 /**
 285     @class wxEventLoopActivator
 286
 287     Makes an event loop temporarily active.
 288
 289     This class is used to make the event loop active during its life-time,
 290     e.g.:
 291     @code
 292         class MyEventLoop : public wxEventLoopBase { ... };
 293
 294         void RunMyLoop()
 295         {
 296             MyEventLoop loop;
 297             wxEventLoopActivator activate(&loop);
 298
 299             ...
 300         } // the previously active event loop restored here
 301     @endcode
 302
 303     @library{wxbase}
 304     @category{appmanagement}
 305
 306     @see wxEventLoopBase
 307 */
 308 class wxEventLoopActivator
 309 {
 310 public:
 311     /**
 312         Makes the loop passed as the parameter currently active.
 313
 314         This saves the current return value of wxEventLoopBase::GetActive() and
 315         then calls wxEventLoopBase::SetActive() with the given @a loop.
 316      */
 317     wxEventLoopActivator(wxEventLoopBase *loop);
 318
 319     /**
 320         Restores the previously active event loop stored by the constructor.
 321      */
 322     ~wxEventLoopActivator();
 323 };