waits for a signal emitted from a thread and updates the gui
        Args:
            progress:
        Returns:

def update_status(self, progress):
        """
        waits for a signal emitted from a thread and updates the gui
        Args:
            progress:
        Returns:

        """

        # interval at which the gui will be updated, if requests come in faster than they will be ignored
        update_interval = 0.2

        now = datetime.datetime.now()

        if not self._last_progress_update is None and now-self._last_progress_update < datetime.timedelta(seconds=update_interval):
            return

        self._last_progress_update = now

        self.progressBar.setValue(progress)

        script = self.current_script

        # Estimate remaining time if progress has been made
        if progress:
            remaining_time = str(datetime.timedelta(seconds=script.remaining_time.seconds))
            self.lbl_time_estimate.setText('time remaining: {:s}'.format(remaining_time))
        if script is not str(self.tabWidget.tabText(self.tabWidget.currentIndex())).lower() in ['scripts', 'instruments']:
            self.plot_script(script)