Print dialog issues on win32

[Alexander Larsson <alexl redhat com>]

I'm working on using the win32 print dialog (PrintDlgEx) behind the 
highlevel printing API I've been posting about. I've stumbled on an issue 
though. PrintDlgEx is a blocking call, so if you call it the mainloop 
won't execute until it returns. This means your other windows won't even 
repaint.

One obvious solution is to create a thread and run PrintDlgEx from that 
thread. We can't in general use glib threads, as the application might not 
have called g_threads_init(), and even less likely gdk_threads_init(). 
(Not to mention that gtk-win32 has generic threading issues.) However, if 
we create the thread using the native win32 thread APIs and make sure we 
isolate that thread from any gdk/gtk code we should be fine. 

Of course, if we use a solution like that we can never ever mix Gtk+ 
widgets with the print dialog, so any extensibility of the print dialog 
has to be done some other way.

I talked a bit to tor, and he said John Ehresman was using the native 
commdlg file selection dialog in his app, and he might be using some other 
trick to solve the blocking issue. John? And tricks up your sleeve?

For now i'll use the native threading approach to try to get something 
running.

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 Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
                   alexl redhat com    alla lysator liu se 
He's an oversexed amnesiac shaman who hides his scarred face behind a mask. 
She's a brilliant bisexual mermaid with the power to bend men's minds. They 
fight crime!