How to stop a task in the queued message handler template

[Hiphiphooray]

I am using the basic queued message handler to seperate my event handler and tasks.  An event on the front panel (button pressed) puts a message in the queue.  When the queue handles this message, it performs a task.  However, I now want to add a button on the front panel that immediately terminates this task at any point in the task.  

For example:  pressing start on the front panel causes the message handling loop to count up to 10000.  Pressing stop on the front panel should cause the counting to stop.  

How can I implement this?

Thanks!

[Darren · Accepted solution]

In general you don't want to perform a task in a single frame of your MHL that will take a long time. You have two options:

1. Have the MHL message itself to increment the number. That way you can enqueue a priority "stop" message on the queue if you want to stop while this is happening.

2. Have a parallel loop that is incrementing the number, and have the MHL send messages to that loop to start and stop it. Take a look at the Continuous Measurement and Logging sample project for an example of messaging between loops.

[Bob_Schor]

Suppose you have a Message that says "Start Counting" and passes in the desired number of counts (say, 10000).  This State initializes the Counter and calls (via a Message on the Message Queue) an "Increment Count" which handles a single count, incrementing the count.  If the count is less than MaxCount, send another Increment Message.  When you finish, you can send a "Finished" message.

Note that since you send a Message for every point, you can easily send a Stop message which "sneaks in" and lets you terminate the Count.  Note that when you process the Stop message, you may find that there's a Count message on the Queue -- you can look for this and remove it if you want.

This fits the suggestion that processing a Message should not take a long time, making the Message Handler responsive.

Bob Schor