Mariano,

Sockets _should not_block the the entire image, but I have just seen it happen with LDAPlayer; I am not yet sure what to make of it.  That said, there should be a way to block the UI until something happens, but that should not be done from the sockets layer, as too many things benefit from mutliple conversations happening in the background.  On the blocking side, see references to gemstone interfacing, where the server response is integral to the ide responses, so blocking is considered essential.

Bill