OK, XEmacs is 'single-threaded' and will probably stay that way for the foreseeable future for reasons that I don't know (and probably wouldn't understand anyway). But is it possible to give a lisp function a higher priority than normal? To explain what I mean, here's a scenario: Eicq has a function that sends a 'keep-alive' packet to the ICQ server every 60 seconds. If that packet doesn't get through every two minutes, the ICQ server will kick the user off ICQ. ,----[ the function... ] | (defun eicq-keep-alive-start () | "Start keeping alive." | (eicq-keep-alive-stop) | (start-itimer | "eicq keep-alive" | (lambda () | (eicq-send (eicq-pack-keep-alive))) | ;; sending faster won't hurt | 60 60)) `---- In the normal course of events, it's not hard for this function to miss the deadline. Sometimes starting up Gnus can do it (especially if you've got a lot of mail/news for Gnus to bring in). Is there any way of making XEmacs process my keep-alive function before it does anything else? If Gnus is starting up and the timer on eicq-keep-alive comes around to the top of the minute, stop processing the Gnus startup (or whatever else is happening) and process the keep-alive function in Eicq. Did you understand that? I've just re-read it and I'm not sure that I do. So, possible or pipe-dream? -- |---<Steve Youngs>---------------<GnuPG KeyID: 9E7E2820>---| | XEmacs - It's not just an editor. | | It's a way of life. | |------------------------------------&lt;youngs(a)xemacs.org&gt;---|