Send_Message and Exec_Method

OK, so we deprecated the Send_Message function for OI 10…

… but before you worry about your apps being broken don't despair because it still works as it ever has.  It has actually been replaced by a new function named Exec_Method which exposes the same interface as Send_Message, with the added bonus that it can support more than four parameters, so it's basically a straight drop-in replacement when you need to use it.

Why did we do this?  Well, there's a couple of reasons really:

• When talking about object-based systems the usual jargon includes references to properties, methods and events. However, with OI we've always used the term "messages" when referring to an object's methods because of the Send_Message function.  We thought it was about time to use more standard terminology, like we do with the Basic+ OleExecMethod function for example.
• Send_Message is very close to the name of the core Windows API SendMessage function and sometimes it's just too confusing (and annoying) trying to explain which one you actually mean when you're discussing how to manipulate an object.

Actually Send_Message isn't the only casualty, we've deprecated another well-known function too, but we'll leave the details of that one for another post…

[Edit: 24 Apr 13 - Call_Method renamed to Exec_Method]