Question

I created this class, And I want to load thumbnails into the iconview as a different thread for efficiency reasons, because the gui load very slow if I do it in the same thread. But when I create the thread, it doesn’t works, it draw some thumbnails and then they dissapear. When I use join, it works. This is my code:

    public class FotoThumbnailPane : Gtk.ScrolledWindow{

private FotoThumbnailPane_i pane;   
private string namet;

public FotoThumbnailPane(string name){
    this.namet = name;
}

public void set_imagelist(fileutils.ImageList image_list){
    pane = new FotoThumbnailPane_i(image_list);
    this.add (pane);
    this.set_min_content_width(140);
    this.show_all();
}

    //This is my threaded function
    public void* load_thumbs(){

    pane.set_visible(false);
    pane.newmodel = new Gtk.ListStore (2, typeof (Gdk.Pixbuf), typeof (string));
    pane.set_selection_mode (Gtk.SelectionMode.SINGLE);
    pane.set_pixbuf_column (0);
    pane.set_model(pane.newmodel);

    string icon_style = """
            .thumbnail-view {
                background-color: #FFFFFF;
            }
            .thumbnail-view:selected {
                background-color: #9D9D9D;
                border-color: shade (mix (rgb (34, 255, 120), #fff, 0.5), 0.9);
            }
        """;

    var icon_view_style = new Gtk.CssProvider ();

        try {
            icon_view_style.load_from_data (icon_style, -1);
        } catch (Error e) {
            warning (e.message);
        }
        pane.get_style_context ().add_class ("thumbnail-view");
    pane.get_style_context ().add_provider (icon_view_style, Gtk.STYLE_PROVIDER_PRIORITY_THEME);

    //Add thumbnails to the iconview
    string buff;
    for(int i=1; i<pane.image_list.size; i++){
    buff = pane.image_list.get_full_filename(i);
    stdout.printf("Added %s to thumbnail\n", buff);
            var image = new Gdk.Pixbuf.from_file_at_scale(buff, 110, 80, false);
            // Add the wallpaper name and thumbnail to the IconView
            Gtk.TreeIter root;
            pane.newmodel.append(out root);
            pane.newmodel.set(root, 0, image, -1);
            pane.newmodel.set(root, 1, pane.image_list.get_filename(i), -1);

            // Select the thumbnail if it is the first in list
            if (i==0) {
                pane.select_path (pane.newmodel.get_path (root));
            }    
            pane.iters.append (root);
    }
    pane.set_sensitive(true);
    this.queue_draw();
return null;
}

}

Answer 1

You don’t actually need to deal with threads in your program–you can just use an asynchronous method to load the content. Specifically, Gdk.Pixbuf.new_from_stream_at_scale_async.

Here is an example:

public async void load (Gtk.Image img, string filename) {
  GLib.File file = GLib.File.new_for_commandline_arg (filename);
  try {
    GLib.InputStream stream = yield file.read_async ();
    Gdk.Pixbuf pixbuf = yield Gdk.Pixbuf.new_from_stream_at_scale_async (stream, 320, -1, true);
    img.set_from_pixbuf (pixbuf);
  } catch ( GLib.Error e ) {
    GLib.error (e.message);
  }
}

private static int main (string[] args) {
  GLib.return_val_if_fail (args.length > 1, -1);

  Gtk.init (ref args);

  Gtk.Window win = new Gtk.Window ();
  win.destroy.connect (() => {
      Gtk.main_quit ();
    });

  Gtk.Image image = new Gtk.Image ();
  win.add (image);

  load.begin (image, args[1], (obj, async_res) => {
      GLib.debug ("Finished loading.");
    });

  win.show_all ();

  Gtk.main ();

  return 0;
}