connecting gui-frontend to non-gui-backend (gtk and glib)

[Ron Baker, Pluralitas!]

I'm writing a gui application to process audio from
the sound card.
I found Glade and it seems pretty cool for creating
GUIs.  I'm using gtk too.
So far I have just added the backend as an idle
process in the gtk main loop.  (I think I'll make it
a thread later.)  But it can't talk to the gui too well.

I see this on frontend/backend division:
http://developer.gnome.org/doc/GGAD/faqs.html
See:  "How can I separate the GUI from the rest of my application?"
But it is pretty general.  How do I actually do what it says?
I haven't found any good examples.

I've thought of adding a timer/callback to the main gtk.
I guess I can do that manually because I don't see a
way to add a timer in Glade.  That surprises me because
I would think that would be a common thing to do.
That makes me wonder if Glade is just limited or if
I'm not up to speed on the paradyme.

And then I am wondering if this timed callback would
be connected to the gui any better than my idle
process.

Anybody got any tips or examples?

--
rb