What i missed ?

PK

[This message has been edited by Popovk (edited 13 June 2001).]

That's a funny story...

KiXtart 2001 aside, everyone knows that OLE in KiXtart 3.63 is broken on Windows 9x. So in order to make KIXWIN32 work on 9x, I had to break (bend) some of OLE/COM rules... the end result is a COM object that only works for KiX !!!

KiXtart 2001 has revamped (working) COM and now it's too smart for it's own good (I mean that in a good way)... the old tricks I used in 3.63 to get it too work don't fool KiXtart 2001 anymore !!!

I'm not planning on developing KIXWIN32 forward into KiXtart 2001. It was mostly intended as a prototype to push the boundaries of kix scripting a little. But there are a couple of other irons in fire right now...

I was especially disappointed that the discussion about login windows in this thread ...

Need help with GUI under 9.x

didn't really pan-out into anything... deep within me lies the belief that a generic windows32 logon window would be a handy thing to have and a cool thing to develop.

The way I thought it would work is that the generic window would already be mapped out - and have a space for a bitmap (like a company logo), a space for a title and a subtitle, a document area (message box) to write text into, and a built-in progress bar... the close and cancel buttons and the window title would be programmable to support any language... that kind of thing ...

And the extra nice thing is that KiXtart 2001 makes the COM stuff so much easier and more natural now. This whole windows business would actually integrate quite well into a logon script, and not look so out-of-place...

-Shawn

Funny you said ? I currently have the same idea about the generic logon window, and after seeing the kixwin32, finally think that it "would" be possible.
I actually tried some stuff with Kix 3.63, and get nearly what i wanted. But the whole thing is with Kix 2k. I didn't think that kixwin was only for v3.63. How sad ...

For the possibility i was searching, it's in fact a full customizable window (little more complex than actuall kixwin32, but not so much. I.e. modal or not, a refresh call, show the _0X in upper right or not, ...)

I can eventually write this, but only in vb (don't know enough C for that) and i don't want to handle a such beast. C is far more usefull for creating toys like that
(Get a look to LoginScreen from http://cwashington.netreach.net, it's in VB. I really like VB, but it's really too heavy for little things. And most time, the VB Dll must be provided)

I've got another question : is it actually possible to call a dll without having it in windows registry in kix 2k ? (like calling a .bat or .exe in same directory)

And finally, (the last), in case i get on rewriting kixwin32 in C for kix2k, could you give me some help (ok, lot lot lot ... n ...) ? (my actual modular logon script won't work without next kix 2k version, so i can take some time on something else)

PK

[This message has been edited by Popovk (edited 13 June 2001).]

1 2 ms 3 ms 2 ms popovk@france.com
2 75 ms 83 ms 88 ms ole@spain.com
3 73 ms 79 ms 93 ms jump@bigpond.com
4 73 ms 79 ms 93 ms halifax-le-montreal.com
5 73 ms 79 ms 93 ms shawn@toronto.com (ouch-right on the head)

Trace complete.

;D

Yeah - KIXWIN32 was sort of an experiment to see how KiXtart would work with customizable forms. One of the big problems with anything like this is handling all the "events" that happen in windows - like mouse presses, mouse moves, button clicks - and to top it all off - KiXtart doesn't support ActiveX events - so it makes it even tougher !

So when you say "customizable window" are you thinking along the lines of what was described in the previous post (pre-defined boxes, bitmaps and buttons, etc) ... or were thinking along the lines of how KIXWIN32 works - where you can actually define your own buttons and text boxes...

I personally think it would be more useful to have the pre-defined (but somewhat programmable) window version ... it would certainly make using the window much, much easier if all the windows stuff was managed for you ...

Also, you mentioned that you know VB but did I understand (from your post) that you don't want to learn C ? Like you hinted at, programming OLE in C is definitely a different beast, but there are some nice tools to help you along the way (like MFC and the ActiveX Template Library) ...

But I don't see anything wrong about writing it in VB - nice thing about the VB approach is that you can prototype it real fast - and get working and oget it out there and get feedback on it real quick... then you can adjust and tweak and change it ...

And then you can always look at porting it to C later on, because after all, the script doesn't care what language a COM object is written in - so as long as you don't change the interface - you can write the componenet in just about anything you want ... the interface and the actual window itself are what's important !

Yeah - I'll lend you hand in whatever way I can ... just let me how I can be of service...

And lastly - I'm going to check-out this logonprocess.exe link you gave and see what the scoop is there - did you actually try this yet ?

-Shawn

[This message has been edited by Shawn (edited 15 June 2001).]

For the customizable windows, it's how kixwin32 works. For this case, everyone will have his own screen, and don't really want something else they don't like. So i prefer doing the logon window myself, than using a predefined-fixed one. For that, kixwin32 is perfect, even if you don't need everything it can offer.
And, imagine giving kixtart such possibility, especially with the new version. How great!

For the C story, it's not that i don't want to learn it, but i don't really have the time to get better on it (i already know a little about, but making such ole thing is at a far highter level). I remember the first time i made a ocx under vb, after making some (good ?) exe programs : it's here i got my first white hairs.
And yes, i think i will go first on vb. As you said, if calling command needed in the script won't change, language is not important, and i will have a working toy much faster. Only the need of the VB dll on every comp redhibit me, but, well, users known when to take a coffee
Speaking of the VB DLL redistrib, the logonprocess is a very nice one, and not really big for what we search : a nice frontend for the logon procedure, with some custom possibilities. But i didn't look more for the moment.

And for having an activeX support for kixtart, i think i have a little trick to help it.

Ok, let's start (i don't think i'll sleep this WE) ... tikitikitikitikitikitikitikitik... rahhh, damn keyboard !!!...tikitikitiki

PK

[This message has been edited by Popovk (edited 15 June 2001).]

We should probably take this off-line but here's my ideas at this point - if you want to write a KiXtart COM object that implements customizable forms - you're probably better off with C (not necessarily C++) - just good old ANSI C

I'm not a huge VB fan myself - although I appreciate it for what it is. And the builtin COM support just can't be beat ! But I remember reading an article about creating "Dynamic VB Forms" - you know - a VB app that can dynamically create buttons and boxes (as opposed to creating them in Visual Studio with the forms designer) and the impression I got was that it's really, really tough to do (if not impossible) anyone know otherwise ?

So I would suggest the following tools for doing this ...

1) Visual Studio C++

2) ActiveX Template Library (comes with VS)

The ActiveX Template Library is the best thing since sliced bread. I used to use all the time to build COM objects (I've since switched to a hand-crafted COM library)... The nice thing about the ATL is that it's extremely light-weight and very easy to use... the only other real option is the Microsoft Foundation Class library (MFC) which I absolutely hate (loath). Although like VB, I appreciate it for what it is !!! Plus, the MFC is like VB in that it requires a huge DLL runtime library to be installed along with your app - I hate when that happens. You can "statically link" the MFC into your exe but that just makes your exe a big monster...

Ok - so you have Visual Studio C, you have the ATL and the only other thing you'll need (to understand) is how the win32 window api's work and a basic knowledge of the Windows GDI (Graphics Device Interface).

So I guess the bottom line here is if customizable forms is what you're after - C is the way to go ... now the other thing is this - are there any other languages (out there) that give you the power of C and the OLE support of VB - kind of like the best of both worlds - know of any ?

-Shawn