gtk_widget_add_tick_callback() and gtk_main_iteration()

Question

I have two GTK windows

1. Normal (main) window that runs animation, draws stuff in callback registered by gtk_widget_add_tick_callback().

2. At some point secondary window is created that runs modal loop:

   void show_modal() 
   {
      GtkWindow* gw = gtkwindow(this);
   
      if( parent() )
        gtk_window_set_transient_for(gw, gtkwindow( parent() ));
   
   
      gtk_widget_show(GTK_WIDGET(gw));
      gtk_window_set_modal(gw,TRUE);
      gtk_window_set_keep_above(gw,TRUE);
      this->update_window_state(gool::WINDOW_SHOWN);
   
      while( this->is_valid_window() )
      {
         if(this->_window_state == WINDOW_HIDDEN) break;
         if(this->_window_state == WINDOW_STATE_NA) break;
         gtk_main_iteration(); // gtk_main_iteration_do(true);
      }
   }
   

Problem: Animation in main window works fine until show_modal() is invoked. It appears as gtk_main_iteration(); blocks ticks added by gtk_widget_add_tick_callback() function. As soon as I close secondary window and so while() {gtk_main_iteration();} loop exits then animations in main window start running again.

Any idea of how to make "animation friendly" modal loops in GTK?

UPDATE: it appears as gtk_main_iteration(); blocks not only ticks but any updates of any windows other than "current" - they are simply frozen. What is the reasoning of such GTK behavior?

UPDATE #2:

gtk_dialog_run(); behaves exactly as gtk_main_iteration(); - locks any updates on any window in process other than active window.

Answer 1

It seems to be by definition: link

gboolean gtk_main_iteration (void); Runs a single iteration of the mainloop. If no events are waiting to be processed GTK+ will block until the next event is noticed. If you don’t want to block look at gtk_main_iteration_do() or check if any events are pending with gtk_events_pending() first.

The explanation suggests to use gtk_main_iteration_do(FALSE) if you don't want blocking:

gboolean gtk_main_iteration_do (gboolean blocking); Runs a single iteration of the mainloop. If no events are available either return or block depending on the value of blocking: TRUE if you want GTK+ to block if no events are pending

As for gtk_dialog_run: it also blocks by design link

gint gtk_dialog_run (GtkDialog *dialog); Blocks in a recursive main loop until the dialog either emits the “response” signal, or is destroyed.[...]

I read about people solving this using multiple threads: handle the GUI in the main thread and do background work in another one. There's an article about it here that might be useful.