We could use some sample code here, but here is some general pointers:
For functions which take a long time to process there are a few ways of doing it. You found the two obvious ones, namely let it run and thus block the interface, second start a thread and let that do the work. A third option to consider is to break up the work in smaller bits, thus in your idle loop calculate some of the work required, short enough so that the interface does not block and then return the control to the interface. In many cases, this is the simplest option.
But if you really want threads, then make you gui the primary thread and when one of your actions starts running, give it a shared variable (threads::shared) so that it can report back progress, which you can then check in the idle loop.

T I M T O W T D I

In reply to Re: Threading in Perl by Cine
in thread Threading in Perl by SyN/AcK

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":



  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.