I'm building a Windows Forms system (in C# if it matters to anyone) that provides an application automation service. As this application is targeted at users who are not computer savvy, I've decided to break up the functions of the application into various tasks, and provide these tasks via a wizard UI. I'd like to avoid coupling the views and view engine (from which the Wizard will be built) to the automation engine.

The problem I'm having is that the automation engine, which runs on a separate thread while it does its thing, needs to report status information back to the user, as well as listen for cancel or pause events from the user. Since I don't want the view engine or the automation engine to rely on each other, I'm having a hard time figuring out how to provide for this information conduit.

Any insights into this issue I'm having would be greatly appreciated. I've been wracking my brain for a couple weeks now on this point, and I really don't want to give up and just couple everything together.

If anyone needs additional details to help come up with some sort of idea please let me know and I'll be happy to provide them.