cj:

ALL RIGHT !!!

If Ruud makes these improvements - get ready for a wild KiX ride !!!

This still leaves the question about what automation objects are available and usefull in a KiX script.

One of the ways I look for usefull objects is to start Visual Basic and create an empty project. Then from the "references" menu, add in interesting looking components. Then use the "object browser" to look at the implemented methods and properties. VB is also a create tool for prototyping your script. Get it to work in VB first - then write your KiX script !

I personally use C++ for building components. VB is nice but even a minimal (one method) automation object would build- up into a huge installation package. C++ components are tiny and ship in just one DLL !!!

In terms of KiX - be carefull - automation supports a wide array of variable types (roughly 38 of them and generically called "variants" ). Kix only supports 9 of them. You might also find that alot of the components require that you pass array arguments ( which KiX doesn't support (yet) ).

Even if Rudd does imbed automation support into the KiX language itself, I think there will still be a place for building a "useful" "KiXfriendly" snapin.

This is the sample driver script that I am using right now ...

code:
break on

$klib = olecreateobject ( "KiXtart.Library" )

if olecallfunc ( $klib, "GetTotalPhysicalMemory" ) > 64000000
 ?"All right my brother!"
else
 ?"Sorry to hear that"
endif
exit

Right now ( as we speak) and am coding the "return value" part of the GetTotalPhysicalMemory method - then I'll be done with the component infrastructure. From there it's easy stretch to build up functionality by adding new methods to new and wonderful Windows API's ...

Why am I doing all this ?

At the end of the day - I want to be able to include a Windows progress (status) bar in some KiX scripted installation packages that I have. Thought it would be a nice touch.

Has anybody been able to implement one with pure KiX OLE functions ? I think the problem is that the Progress Bar is a "control" and is meant to be run in the context of a pure "Windows" application. It think KiX is what they call a "Win32 Console Application" !


Shawn.

[This message has been edited by Shawn (edited 25 May 2000).]