Q How should Progress Monitors be used?

A A few tips on using Progress Monitors:

• Always start the progress monitor and do at least 1 bit of work. For example:

  monitor.beginTask("Working", 4);
  monitor.work(1);

• Always finish started job.

  try{
    monitor.beginTask("Working", 4);
    monitor.work(1);
    // some work
  }finally{
    monitor.done();
  }

• Make use of SubProgressMonitor if sending the monitor to another method:

  try{
    monitor.beginTask("Working", 8);
    monitor.work(1);
  
    SubProgressMonitor sub=new SubProgressMonitor(monitor, 3);
    doSomeWork(sub);
    sub.done();  // don't forget to make sure the sub monitor is done
  
    sub=new SubProgressMonitor(monitor, 3);
    doSomeMoreWork(sub);
    sub.done();  // don't forget to make sure the sub monitor is done (callee might not use it)
  
  }finally{
    monitor.done();
  }