Processing Messages

If I have some code that is executing that takes a while to complete is there any way to process messages at the same time??

i.e. if I have some code like this (below), where the program is stuck in a loop for 100000 milliseconds, is there anyway to process say a mouseclick while it is running?

-------------------------------
timeInterval = 100000
lastCount = GetTickCount;

do{
Count = GetTickCount;
} while(Count < (LastCount+timInterval))
-------------------------------

Alternatively, is there any way to switch off certain inputs while code is running. e.g. if a user was to click a mouse button while the above code was running the mouse click message would be ignored completely so that it doesn't get processed even after the code has completed.

This may sound the opposite, but my problem is that I have some code similar to the above and I want to disable mouse clicking whilst it is running. I tried using conditions to test if the code was running or not in the mouse click message handler but by the time the message was processed these conditions would always show that it wasn't (because the mouse click message obviously wouldnt be processed till the code was finished).

So I thought that the solution would either be to process the mouse click instantly (and test to see if the code is running), or to disable mouse clicking messages whilst the code was running.

Hope this makes sense! (?)

thanks in advance

dt

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If I have some code that is executing that takes a while to complete is there any way to process messages at the same time??

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I have no idea of what you are asking.

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if I have some code like this (below), where the program is stuck in a loop for 100000 milliseconds, is there anyway to process say a mouseclick while it is running?

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This is a question in which you need to be more specific.
If you set up a thread then yes. But your loop needs to be inside of that thread.
If you do it inside the message loop of a windows application, then I believe you will freeze the computer for a period of time.
I could me wrong, so you will have to try it to find out for sure.

Sorry didn't read all the why throught it the first time.

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So I thought that the solution would either be to process the mouse click instantly (and test to see if the code is running), or to disable mouse clicking messages whilst the code was running.

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You can setup a system hook to catch the mouse clicks and stop anything else from processing them. But why would you want to do that?
Search for "system hook" on the board and it should show you what you want to know.

Thanks, what I've done is created custom buttons that are simply RECT structures which I paint the button graphics to. I repaint the buttons and/or execute other code when the window receives a mouse message with the co-ordinates within the button RECT.

So basically I wanted to be able to disable these buttons while certain stuff was going on. (why didn't I ask that before, hmm??!).
I realise that I could use buttons with BS_BITMAP and simply disable them, but the windows buttons do stuff that I dont want and I cant seem to get rid of the horrible grey border of the button around my bitmap.

Anyways, thanks again, I'll look it up

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If you set up a thread then yes

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AAAaaaaahhhhhhh I've just discovered threads and everything makes sense :-)))))))

Basically the 'code' wasn't a thread but simply a function that was called after a particular message was recieved. Therefor, while the function was running, no other messages could be processed. I've made it a thread now and everything is fabby!

thnx