OpenEuphoria

Re: Win32Lib: how run another program?

• Posted by Matthew Lewis <MatthewL at KAPCOUSA.COM> Aug 31, 2000
• 490 views

> From: wolfgang fritz
>
> Check out my 'tutorial' engines.
> Depending on which version you have, it's either Tutor3.exw,
> ... or WinTutor.exw. [ in my latest 'beta' ]
> It uses shellExecute() for *everything*...
> My address7.zip also uses shellExecute() to start an e-mail...
>
> ...and Kat, you might try shellExecute() with the following flag.
>
> SW_SHOWMINNOACTIVE -- Displays the window as a minimized
> window. The active
> window remains active.
>
> ...haven't tried it, but if a program opened this way actually *does*
> anything while it's minimized, I suppose this is what you
> might be looking
> for.

Well, I sort of got it to work.  One problem was that I wasn't using the
flags properly.  Also, it doesn't seem to like command line arguments, like
"winword.exe document.txt".

To run and forget, you need to add:

xShellExecuteNoRet  = linkProc( shell32, "ShellExecuteA", {C_LONG, C_LONG,
C_LONG, C_LONG, C_LONG, C_LONG} )

global procedure shellExecuteNoRet( sequence cmd, sequence file, atom style
)

    -- call ShellExecute to display a file
    atom result, file_string, cmd_string

    -- convert to strings
    file_string = allocate_string( file )
    cmd_string = allocate_string( cmd )

    -- call ShellExecute
    c_proc( xShellExecuteNoRet,
        { getHandle( mainWindow ), cmd_string, file_string, 0, 0, style } )

    -- free the strings
    free( cmd_string )
    free( file_string )

end procedure

The procedure is the same as shellExecute(), except it doesn't wait for the
exit code from windows.

Matt