See Re: Perl Tk and Threads. For the problem of the thread starting with new(), you can control threads manually by putting them in a loop controlled by a go/stop shared variable, see Re: Perl/Tk threading and/or cron job? for example.

If you are using one of the latest versions of threads, you can also make use of Thread::Semaphore. Directly from "perldoc threads".

use threads;
           use Thread::Semaphore;

           sub thr_func
           {
               my $sema = shift;

               # Thread 'suspend/resume' signal handler
               $SIG{'STOP'} = sub {
                   $sema->down();      # Thread suspended
                   $sema->up();        # Thread resumes
               };

               ...
           }

           # Create a semaphore and pass it to a thread
           my $sema = Thread::Semaphore->new();
           my $thr = threads->create('thr_func', $sema);

           # Suspend the thread
           $sema->down();
           $thr->kill('STOP');

           ...

           # Allow the thread to continue
           $sema->up();
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