IPython snippet for doing work in a thread, and updating a progressbar

ipython_thread.py

import threading
from IPython.display import display
import ipywidgets as widgets
import time
def get_ioloop():
    import IPython, zmq
    ipython = IPython.get_ipython()
    if ipython and hasattr(ipython, 'kernel'):
        return zmq.eventloop.ioloop.IOLoop.instance()
ioloop = get_ioloop()
thread_safe = True
def work():
    for i in range(10):
        def update_progress(i=i):
            print "calling from thread", threading.currentThread()
            progress.value = (i+1)/10.
        print i
        time.sleep(0.5)
        if thread_safe:
            get_ioloop().add_callback(update_progress)
        else:
            update_progress()
print "we are in thread", threading.currentThread()

thread = threading.Thread(target=work)
progress = widgets.FloatProgress(value=0.0, min=0.0, max=1.0, step=0.01)
display(progress)
thread.start()

I've updated this for Python3 and provided an IPython notebook example:
https://gist.github.com/the-moog/94b09b49232731bd2a3cedd24501e23b