Jobs and progress

Since the user interface is single-threaded, if a command takes a long amount of time, it will block the user interface from being redrawn or processed. As a result, it is necessary to run long-running operations in a background thread to prevent the UI from hanging.

Although the core Java library contains java.util.Timer, the Eclipse Jobs API provides a mechanism to both run jobs and report progress. It also allows jobs to be grouped together and paused or joined as a whole.

Get Eclipse Plug-in Development Beginner's Guide - Second Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.