View source for FAQ How do I switch from using a Progress dialog to the Progress view?

If you have an existing plug-in that uses a <tt>ProgressMonitorDialog</tt>, 
you can easily switch to using the Progress view by rewriting your operation as
a <tt>org.eclipse.core.runtime.Job</tt>. Assume that your original code looks like this:

<pre>
   IRunnableWithProgress op = new IRunnableWithProgress() {
      public void run(IProgressMonitor monitor) {
         runDecathlon(monitor);
      }
   };
   IWorkbench wb = PlatformUI.getWorkbench();
   IWorkbenchWindow win = wb.getActiveWorkbenchWindow();
   Shell shell = win != null ? win.getShell() : null;
   new ProgressMonitorDialog(shell).run(true, true, op);
</pre>

The equivalent code using <tt>org.eclipse.core.runtime.Job</tt> would look like this:

<pre>
   class DecathlonJob extends Job {
      public DecathlonJob() {
         super("Athens decathlon 2004");
      }
      public IStatus run(IProgressMonitor monitor) {
         runDecathlon(monitor);
         return Status.OK_STATUS;
      }
   };
   new DecathlonJob().schedule();
</pre>

Both use an <tt>IProgressMonitor</tt> to report progress to the user. The major 
difference is that the <tt>ProgressMonitorDialog</tt> is a modal dialog and blocks 
access to the entire UI during the execution of <tt>runDecathlon</tt>. When a 
<tt>Job</tt> is used, it will run in the background, and the user can continue 
working on something else.

Although the changes required here appear to be simply cosmetic, keep in mind
that there are subtle implications to running your operation in the background.
Foremost, you must ensure that your operation code is thread safe in case
two copies of the operation start running simultaneously. You also need
to think about whether your background operation will be in contention
with other ongoing processes for exclusive resources, such as Java object
monitors. Contention between threads can block the user interface; worse, 
it can lead to deadlock.  Read up on your concurrent 
programming before you venture down this path.

== See Also: ==
*[[FAQ How do I use progress monitors?]]
*[[FAQ Does the platform have support for concurrency?]]
*[[FAQ Actions, commands, operations, jobs: What does it all mean?]]

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