Using Jobs API and asyncExec

Using the Jobs API (Job and IProgressMonitor) you can implement code that will run in a thread and update the standard Eclipse progress monitoring service as you go along in your thread.

To create a job, extend from org.eclipse.core.runtime.Job and implement the run method:

protected IStatus run(IProgressMonitor monitor) {
  int steps = 100000;
  monitor.beginTask("My Task", steps);
  for ( int i=0; i
To activate the job in MyClass (say it's a page with a tableViewer which we use to set the input), you do the following:
MySampleJob myJob = new MySampleJob();
myJob .addJobChangeListener(new JobChangeAdapter() {
  public void done(IJobChangeEvent event) {
    Display.getDefault().asyncExec(new Runnable() {
      public void run() {
        MyClass.this.tableViewer.
                        setInput(myJob .getInputForTableViewer());
      }
    });
  }
});
myJob.schedule();

Have fun!