For those who have asked and to those we promised some time ago, we finally have a new white paper on Using OLE in OpenInsight. This is another free download so enjoy!

[email protected]

SRP Computer Solutions, Inc.

Don,

This is a corker primer on ActiveX/OCX in context of OpenInsight, for which your staff should be commended.

I know that Oystein will be avidly reading it .

Thanks for the contribution to the RevSoft community.

We'd like to add our congratulations to Richard's, a sterling effort that deserves praise indeed. Thank you Don and SRPCS.

The Sprezzatura Group

World Leaders in all things RevSoft

Thanks Don. For sure we will peruse it for the gems within.

Is anyone (including RTI) doing a paper on using multiple engines

Again, appreciate your excellent work. Tally ho,

Ray

Is anyone (including RTI) doing a paper on using multiple engines

Well I don't want to speak too presumptuously here, but that is tentatively our next white paper. We might have already begun the work on it for our upcoming SoCalRUG meeting tomorrow, but since Mike Ruane is visiting us we choose to postpone this topic until our next meeting in three months. Perhaps we can have a document prepared beforehand…but this does take a lot of time and effort. I now appreciate the work that Sprezz does with the S/ENL much more!

[email protected]

SRP Computer Solutions, Inc.

Which explains the absence of almost a year! (Sorry). The bones of one are starting to take shape in the lab and we do hope to have one out real soon now. We've just been overwhelmed with all the new stuff coming in and some major internal client projects which are finally coming to fruition.

The Sprezzatura Group

World Leaders in all things RevSoft

Great job. Thank you for the effort.

Ira is also working on this (that is, multiple engines and Inet_Publishing) as a priority to document. There are a large number of permutations - some may be better than others.

My view - which I'm sure others share - is that OI's sucess is dependendant on the ability for developers to rapidly move from concept to implimentation. Many of us dont have the time or resources to do extensive groundwork on areas unfamilliar to us. It is not sufficient to know that the product has enormouse potential if we can't (quickly) untap those possibilities. So good documentation and pool of share knowledge on how to use and extend the use of OI is absolutely critical.

Contributions such as that from SRP and Sprezzatura are a great gift to the community, likewise input to Ira to augment, update and expand the core documentation.

Richard Bright

BrightIdeas New Zealand

Hear! Hear!

Let's all thank SRP and SPREZZ for their outstanding contribution to this community.

Ray Chan

P.S. Again RTI thanks for OI32! BTW, will we be able to compile large programs. I know we broke a barrier moving from OI16 to OI32, but just wondering

That is odd - I an sure I have already seen this functionality - mutliple servers - havent I Eric?

Richard ..

Couldn't have said it better myself. Great job to all.

Don M.

Don,

Great work.

The article doesn't contain the solution to my current troubles with the MS RTF control. But I believe there must be some local explanation for my problem.

I hope to get time to try out the tabs control mentioned in the article.

- Oystein -

Oystein,

The article doesn't contain the solution to my current troubles with the MS RTF control. But I believe there must be some local explanation for my problem.

Would you please refresh my memory one what that problem was?

[email protected]

SRP Computer Solutions, Inc.

What are they? I vaguely remember a think from the past…. A bit like arrays that used to blow up. Life become so much simpler when you can pass hugh amounts of info - whole records in an array in memory.

Richard Bright

BrightIdeas New Zealand

I thought I saw Eric's obituary - are you saying his dimise was overstated.

Multiple engines - I was thinking loosely in the context of multiple instances as used in Web etc. While not strictly the same issue - there is some overlap. I understand that it is possible to run multiple engines and load on same and clustered servers. Again in the web context an e-comerce site which has recently deployed OI in conjunction with S/Web is handling 50,000 hits per hour and is made up of multiple servers with multiple OI engines running on each server.

I thought Emus were not allowed to be fed steriods - blame it on Sprez.

Don,

Awesome whitepaper!

The only criticism is the claim that OMNIEVENT can not handle more than five parameters.  The fourth parameter to the QUALIFY_EVENT Send_Message call has been enhanced for customizing how data is returned when the event occurs.  The fields of this parameter now are:

Param - Set or clear the event. If true, the event is set, if false (or just not passed) the event is cleared. Valid for all event types (not just OLE events).

Param - Fully qualified event handler. This specifies the specific event handler to be called and avoids the overhead of the system determining the proper event handler at runtime. This parameter is optional and is valid for all event types.

Param - The Presentation Server event. The presentation server event name. This can be used instead of Param and specifies the event name to handle this event allowing the Presentation Server to determine the fully qualified event handler at runtime. This parameter is optional and is valid for all event types.

Param - Execute synchronously. If true, the event is executed immediately when the event occurs. If false, the original behavior of scheduling the event handler to be executed sometime "real soon" is used. This parameter is optional and is valid for all event types.

Param - Suppress name parameter. If true, the OLE event name is not passed to the event handler. If false, the default behavior of passing the event name as the third parameter of the event is done. Optional and only valid for OLE events.

Param - Pass event dispid. If true, the OLE event dispid value is passed. If false, the default behavior of not passing the event dispid value is done. Optional and only valid for OLE events.

Param - Single parameter. If true, all of the OLE event parameters are passed as a single field mark delimited parameter to the event handler. If false, the default behavior of passing each OLE event parameter as a separate event handler parameter is performed. Optional and only valid for OLE events.

Hope this helps more than confuses…

Pat

Pat,

Awesome whitepaper!

Thank you, especially for the past assistance you have given us that has brought clarity to our understanding of OLE in OI. Thanks also to the others who have expressed similar comments.

The only criticism is the claim that OMNIEVENT can not handle more than five parameters. The fourth parameter to the QUALIFY_EVENT Send_Message call has been enhanced for customizing how data is returned when the event occurs. The fields of this parameter now are:

This is a valid point. In a very subtle and indirect way we refer the reader to the enhanced Send_Message parameters in the References section, Item #3, in our paper. We (I) debated whether to include clarifications like you are doing now but it was decided that if we began to cross that bridge then we would have to go all the way. That meant taking a lot more time and space to describe the significance of all the other parameters in Send_Message. For instance, I really wanted to address how the Synchronous Flag could be used to abort an action before it really takes place. For instance, we are working on a grid control but we want a true pre-deleterow event as well as a post-deleterow event. There has to be a way for OI to inform the OLE control that the process needs to be aborted. In other words, we are trying to utilize the concept of event-chaining with our OLE controls. Not that easy when we can't do a true value back to the original OLE event, but we are working around it using the Synchronous Flag as a way to pause the OLE event until we do something else to communicate our "return value" back to the control.

Another issue we didn't cover was capturing WINMSG events (via the ALL_WINMSGS message) for the OLE control.

Could have gone for another 10-20 pages but needed to wrap it up sometime! Of course, this paper would have been absolutely moot if you hadn't worked hard to make OLE in OI possible. Our thanks, as always, goes to you and Revelation Software for making this all possible.

[email protected]

SRP Computer Solutions, Inc.

Sheesh you need papers now? Time was when a simple posting would suffice- … think you guys are getting soft . Nurse - the cold showers…

The Sprezzatura Group

World Leaders in all things RevSoft

Mr. Sprezz,

Gee, it looks like you have nearly enough to complete a "paper". Now how did you know how to do all that stuff?

Anyway I followed the link and saw a reference to the new help in 4.12. Looked at that and found to my surprise background information on setting up multiple engines.

I never cease to surprise myself in wanting things even simplier. I don't need a cold shower. I want to be spoon-fed. Sad, but true.

Anyway we will look at this material as part of our study here so we will have good questions for later

Thanks again, for the reference. It good to know that it is being used (and works .)

BTW, from a real-world point of view, anyone care to share how other develolpers might be applying the multiple-engine feature to their app?

Ciao,

Ray

Don,

There seems to be some licensing issue with my MS RTF control. I get an error message when I try to put the control in a VB form. Other MS controls seem to be OK.

I have only tried the RTF control on one computer, at work.

I'm away from work until Monday. I can supply more detail then.

- Oystein -

I get an error message when I try to put the control in a VB form.

Did you mean an OI form? If and when you can provide me the actual OCX file name I'll see what happens for me. We have played with an RTF control before but I don't recall which version we were using. Don't recall seeing an license or error messages.

[email protected]

SRP Computer Solutions, Inc.

Don,

I mean VB form all right. I follow the procedure in the "Finding Properties of the OLE Control" help file article. But it doesn't work in OI either.

- Oystein -

Oystein,

Where is this article you are referring to? Is it from the Prog. Ref. Guide?

[email protected]

SRP Computer Solutions, Inc.

Don,

Sorry. Run OINSIGHT.chm, choose the Index tab, and key in the string OLE.

- Oystein -

Don,

Let me add to the chorus of kudos for your excellent whitepaper. I'd nominate it as the clearest explanation of any OpenInsight topic I've ever seen. You pointed out a number of errors in my documentation of OLE, which will be corrected in the next release.

As it happens, I'm currently upgrading the OLE documentation, especially to include examples. I plan to include the following examples:

– Web browser

– multimedia (play CDs, .wav files, MIDI files, etc.)

– the Microsoft RTF control

– the Chart control

– the ADO control (allows you to read and write Access/SQL Server data from OI)

– FTP (Internet Transfer)

– Winsock control

The Web browser and multimedia examples are done. I'd be happy to share them with anyone. Imagine - writing an OpenInsight Web browser with 2 lines of code.

I'll investigate the RTF problem and report back. The input from this discussion has been invaluable.

Please send any comments, suggestions for additional examples, etc. to me ([email protected]). My telephone number is 781-938-0550 if you prefer that method.

Thanks for your help.

Sincerely,

Ira Krakow

[email protected]

Telephone: 781-938-0550

Oystein,

FYI, I didn't have any problems when I tried to use the MS Rich Textbox control on an OI form. However, I wasn't able to pull up the properties through Excel as per the Revelation help example either. I'm not sure why that is the case. In fact, I couldn't use it to examine much of any ActiveX control.

One article I read suggests that you should have two files RichTx32.ocx and RichEd32.dll, in order to use and deploy this control successfully.

Using the ALL_OLES message I was able to trap a variety of events. I was also able to find a website that seems to lists all of the properties and methods.

[email protected]

SRP Computer Solutions, Inc.

Don,

One article I read suggests that you should have two files RichTx32.ocx and RichEd32.dll, in order to use and deploy this control successfully.

I have a RichEd32.dll file, with a size of 4K. It's a "Wrapper Dll for Richedit 1.0". Version is 5.0.2134.1. Creation date is 7 Dec 1999.

Win 2K 5.00.2195 SP2.

- Oystein -

Oystein and Don:

I got the RTF example to work well. The filename is:

RICHTX32.OCX

I used

RICHTEXT.RichtextCtrl

(the Version Independent Control Class) as the OLE control class, and the Microsoft MSDN Web site documentation, which is at:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/rtfbox98/html/vbobjRichEdit.asp

The documentation is very thorough, with tons of properties and methods. I got the following to work:

METHODS (Use SendMessage() to the control):

LoadFile(filename) - Load a .RTF file into the control

SaveFile(filename) - Save contents of text to an .RTF file

PROPERTIES (select some text first, pass 1 to turn on, 0 to turn off):

SelBold - turn off/on bold

SelItalic - turn off/on italic

SelUnderline - turn off/on underline

/* turns on the properties */

rv=Set_Property (@window : '.OLECONTROL_1', 'SelBold' , 1)

rv=Set_Property (@window : '.OLECONTROL_1', 'SelItalic' , 1)

rv=Set_Property (@window : '.OLECONTROL_1', 'SelUnderline', 1)

FONT CONTROL - do Utility("CHOOSEFONT"), then do Set_Properties for selected text (SelFontName, SelFontSize, SelBold, SelItalic, SelUnderline) as shown below:

font=Utility("CHOOSEFONT")

rv=Set_Property( @window : '.OLECONTROL_1', 'SelFontName' , font)

rv=Set_Property( @window : '.OLECONTROL_1', 'SelFontSize' , ABS(font))

rv=Set_Property( @window : '.OLECONTROL_1', 'SelBold' , font)

rv=Set_Property( @window : '.OLECONTROL_1', 'SelItalic' , font)

rv=Set_Property( @window : '.OLECONTROL_1', 'SelUnderline' , font)

…There's plenty more in the documentation.

Hope this helps.

Ira

[email protected]

Ira,

Richard Bright has tried (a lot) to help me get the RTF OLE control on the air. He sent me a package of three demos of ActiveX controls, among them a window called "OLE_RTF". The window seems to run OK, apart from the OLE control not becoming an RTF control. It shows the default behaviour, i.e, it's a web browser control.

I think there must be a problem local to my computer. I know I should go and try it on another computer.

- Oystein -

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