Hi everyone, I am working on a GUI right now whose purpose is to capture images from a detector. One of the things that this program does is run through a timed sequence (for example, a reset, then a user-specified integration time, then a read, etc). To keep the program functional during these timed sequences, I avoided using IDL's "wait" commands and instead implemented widget timing, where you specify how long you want IDL to wait before calling a certain function or procedure. This allows the user to do something else in the GUI even while a timed sequence is in progress. However, I just realized today that modal dialogues put a halt to everything, even widget timer commands. In my program, I use dialog_pickfile (a modal dialog) to open previously captured images. I want the user to be able to open previous images while a timed sequence is in progress. But the modal dialog generated by dialog_pickfile makes this impossible - it freezes the sequence until the user finally decides on what file he wants to open. Does anyone know of a way I can overcome this problem and make dialog_pickfile non-modal? I know this should be possible because in my program I have other event-awaiting windows (which I created myself) that can be opened and closed but don't interrupt the timing sequence. I could even imagine creating my own version of dialog_pickfile. But it seems like there should be an easier solution. So, if anyone knows how to make dialog_pickfile NOT freeze everything else, please get back to me. Thanks, Anton