Thread Priority?

[cracklepopflash]

So I used the Fork() method to start a thread once the application starts. However, it seems to cause the UI to lag (meaning that navigating around the menu is really slow). Is there a way to adjust thread priorities, so that UI thread(s) get higher priority and maybe it won't lag as much?

[Opus4]

In the default STV, search for java_lang_Thread_setPriority for some examples.

If possible, put some pauses in the forked threads, or wait for user input inactivity before doing the work, then pause again if user activity starts. You can use GetTimeSinceLastInput() to determine the amount of time since the last user input occurred.

- Andy

[cracklepopflash]

I see. When you say to put "pauses in the forked thread", do you mean to call the Wait function?

Thanks for your help.

[GKusnick]

Yes, Wait() is what he means. As a general rule of thumb, most forked threads should spend most of their time inside Wait() waiting for something to happen.

Alternatively, if your forked thread is waiting for some specific user action, you might consider forking a new thread each time that action is performed and letting those threads do their thing and then exit without looping.

If you actually have some background task that requires continuous computation over a long period of time, that's when lowering the thread priority would be appropriate.

Maybe if you give us some idea of what you're trying to accomplish with your forked thread, we can give more specific advice on how to accomplish it.

Also note that ApplicationStarted may not be the best place to fork off your thread, since that happens just once when SageTV is started, and not (for instance) when the user loads a new STV in mid-session. A better place to do that sort of one-time global initialization is in the Main Menu's BeforeMenuLoad hook. You'd need to check a flag to see if it's been done once already, and if not, do the init (i.e. fork your thread or whatever) and then set the flag to indicate that it's been done. That way you cover all possible paths by which your STV might be invoked.