Ok, I'll try a bit more detail...

I have a command line program that I run under WinXP and ActivePerl... but my work colleagues are... 'loathe'... to use non-Window applications. Hence, I'm trying to build a very simple GUI around it.

So my GUI (that is, Perl/Tk) application displays a window that captures user input in fields, etc. The user clicks a 'Do it!' button and that button calls a sub{}.

In the sub, I create a command line from the user input. I then do a `$cmd`, system($cmd) or a Win32::Process::Create(...$cmd...) to run my command line program and when it's finished and control returns to my Perl/Tk app, I then further process the file created by my command line app.

When the 'spawn' (or 'fork') runs, it takes a little too long to do its thing to just have nothing being displayed in the window I have up. So, I thought I'd pop-up a window saying "Working" whilst the 'spawn' is running and then get rid of the popup when the 'spawn' terminates (the people this is for won't read status lines on a window - they don't 'see' such things - but popup windows are more obvious for them and they generally notice popups).

Does this make my intent any clearer?

Ta

John