Curses::UI does have methods for timed events, but they are not documented. You need to read the source to find them. Based on a quick scan it looks like you need to do something like $cui->set_timer( $timer_id, $callback_ref );. There is an optional 3rd parm that seems to be # of seconds delay, default 1.

When you set_timer it is enabled. Methods disable_timer and enable_timer both take just one parm, the $timer_id.

Modus operandi: The CUI mainloop does some setup, then enters the following infinite loop: while ($self->{mainloop}) { $self->do_one_event }. do_one_event does various things including checking for keypress and mouse movement. One of the various things is do_timer, which loops through all the existing $timer_ids and executes their callbacks.

update: couldn't resist playing with it:

#!/usr/bin/env perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use diagnostics;
use Curses::UI;
my $cui = Curses::UI->new();
my $win = $cui->add( 'window_id', 'Window', );
my $editor = $win->add(
  'myeditor', 'TextEditor',
  -readonly, 1,
  -text, scalar `date;ps -ef`,
);
$cui->set_binding( sub { exit; }, "\cQ"); # CTRL-Q to exit
$cui->set_timer(
  't1',
  sub {
    $editor->text(scalar `date;ps -ef`);
    $editor->draw;
  },
);
$cui->mainloop;
[download]

What I need is to have my main callback executed once a second. It looks like it's re-executed as soon as it exits and this is a lot of unnecessary overhead. Looking at these timer functions and wondering if it's possible to use one to accomplish my goal.