Question

Sorry, the title is a bit hard to understand but I’m not 100% sure as to what to ask. its easier to show you the code and see if you understand from that. I found the way to use the progress dialog from another post on here, so this is basically adding onto that post. ( ProgressDialog not showing until after function finishes )
btw, this is using eclipse environment with the android plugin.

            final MyClass mc = new MyClass(text,info, this);
            final ProgressDialog dialog = ProgressDialog.show(this, "", "Loading. Please wait...", true);

            Thread t = new Thread(new Runnable() 
            {            
                public void run() 
                {
                    // keep sure that this operations
                    // are thread-safe!
                    Looper.prepare(); //I had to include this to prevent force close error

                    mc.doStuff();//does ALOT of stuff and takes about 30 seconds to complete... which is why i want it in a seperate thread

                    runOnUiThread(new Runnable() 
                    {                    
                        @Override
                        public void run() {
                            if(dialog.isShowing())
                                dialog.dismiss();

                        }
                    });
                }
            });
            t.start();

            tmp = mc.getStuff();

now the issue is that tmp is always null because mc isnt finished doing stuff. So, if i do this it finishes doing stuff, but doesnt show the progress dialog..

            t.start();
            while(t.isAlive());//noop
            tmp = mc.getStuff();

Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

In your second attempt, you are making the main thread wait for the new thread to complete.

The runnable in the runOnUiThread call is where you want to do tmp = mc.getStuff();
That will then be executed on the main thread after mc has finished doStuff().

But otherwise, check out the link blindstuff commented, it simplifies threading.