I'm still trying to get into SWT, so maybe that's a beginner question:

I'm working on a time domain plot using Canvas. I implemented this component using JavaFX, Swing and SWT because we have performance issues with JavaFX.

The data gets updated faster than the canvas is able to repaint. So, in Swing I do the following:

    // ...
    SwingUtilities.invokeLater(() -> updateView(data));

void updateView(GraphData data) {
    this.currentGraphData = data;
    this.repaint();
}

This works nicely and it's also performant enough.

A similar approach for my SWT component:

    // ...
    this.getDisplay().asyncExec(() -> updateView(data));

void updateView(GraphData data) {
    if (!this.isDisposed()) {
        this.currentGraphData = data;
        this.redraw(); 
    }
}

This works also nicely, although it seems to be a bit less performant. However it looks like I had a memory leak, because heap space increases over time. This is caused by org.eclipse.swt.widgets.RunnableLock and the Runnable itself accumulating. I'll get a constant heap consumption when I use syncExec instead of asyncExec, unfortunately this pauses the background thread which I don't want to happen.

So my question: is there a way to check if the UI thread is too busy, crowded, etc. to be able to throw some of the updates away? I assume this is what Swing does under the hood, because heap space consumption goes up and down massively, but it never piles up.

Cheers,
Andy