Communicating between 2 programs

[DaveBo]

I'd like to be able to send text messages between programs.
I've been searching the web and come up with lots of pieces of info
like use DDE, use SendMessages, use Shared ActiveX exe ...
but, no examples suitable for a neophyte.
Does anyone have working, cut-n-paste VB code that does this?
Thanks, DaveBo

[filburt1]

Have you tried http://www.planetsourcecode.com/ ?

[Edneeis]

Whats neophyte? I have a sample using a shared ActiveX Exe on my website.

[jim mcnamara]

Neophyte means new leaf - new kid on the block.

You can use:

SendMessage api
Mutexes
Semaphores
Named pipes

[DaveBo]

filburt1, no I haven't tried that site. Thanks for the pointer.

Edneeis, I copied your ActiveX sample and it works very well. Thanks. I have to say, I didn't appreciate your home page though.

Jim m, FYI a neophyte is a new VB developer who gets frustrated by embarrassingly meaningless lists of buzzwords.

[DaveBo]

I've gotten Edneeis' ActiveX connector/shared scheme working to
pass info between programs, now
how can I send an event through that same path?
e.g. when one program instance has data changed and sends
that to the shared object, I'd like it to force the other sharing
programs to read that.

I tried putting a method in the shared obj. that does a
raiseevent etc. but I can't seem to get the WithEvents to work.
When I try Public Withevents xyz as ExShared in the class
module it apparently starts creating separate instances of the
object for each program.
The event fires, but only for the local/current program.

[Edneeis]

The second example project below that one demonstrates this (SharedWithCallbacks). What you basicially do is set up a Notify object that is used in the client and can raise the events then just have Your object track and raise events through the notify object. This is called OLE callbacks. You could do it also by combining the idea of the Notify and Connector objects also.

[jim mcnamara]

Dave - look up the etymology of neophyte - it literally means new leaf in Greek. It does mean newbie.