`update_smooth` blocks with `sleep`

https://github.com/AnnikaV9/lowbar/blob/1fe79e44063e49c5afaef61a958bafc866c7f385/src/lowbar/__init__.py#L139-L143

Using update_smooth will slow down your program. Every time you call it, you add 5 ms to your program execution per percent of progress. It should be non-blocking to have an use case.

One idea would be to have the bar in its own thread and have the context manager hide the ugly thread details from the user, keeping the same or similar interface.

[puttehi]

Threads will increase complexity for sure and fighting race conditions can be difficult but as the project is in such an early stage, it might be quite doable to architect for that.

Alternatively, one could use a delta time approach to keep the printing operations in the main thread but have the timer in a background thread, using that as the progress value between the previous and the target percentage. Then you could also quite easily give the user the option to configure the animation duration. Just have to handle multiple overlapping calls somehow, perhaps by updating the target percentage, and then setting the current time in the timer to the delta calculated from previous progress so the animation just continues on with the new settings 🤔

I think there’s also ready-made solutions for tweening but you still need a time value but without a concrete update loop, a thread is needed to implement that update loop independent of main. (I think)

Food for thought 😄

[AnnikaV9]

I have tested and pushed the changes to the master branch, closing this issue as completed.