Zugg Software :: View topic

Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 6:00 pm

I'm looking to do a little fiddling with COM programming and see what kind of things I can do with it. Is there a way for me to find out a list of valid COM window targets and such of a program easily? My current fiddling project would be to figure out how to take in-mud communication and script it to IM myself so I could possibly continue communication on my mobile phone, a reply from my other IM username would be triggered and CMUD would execute that command. Please don't give me a whole script or anything, just somewhere to start :)

Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 10:17 pm

Try downloading this file: http://www.zuggsoft.com/files/tiviewer.exe

It is a program that I used to use to view the COM interface of any COM-based library installed on my computer. It's been a while since I used it, but you run it and then load the *.EXE program file that you want to inspect (or *.DLL or *.TLB, *.OLB type libraries).

For example, run it and load CMUD.EXE. Then click on the + icon next to the "CoClass" item in the tree. That shows you all of the objects. Expand the "Application" object and then the "Implements" section and that will show you the name of the COM Interface that implements the object.

Next, go back to the top of the tree and expand the "Dispatch" item, then expand the COM Interface class name that you just got from the above (like the "IApplication" interface). Then expand the "Functions" and it will show all of the functions and properties of the interface. You can then click on "Parameters" to see the arguments of the function/method. Doesn't show the argument types, but that's the only main limitation of this tool.

Someday I have planned to add the functionality of TIVIEWER.EXE into CMUD itself as a COM object viewer, but it's been very low on the to-do list. But hopefully it will allow you to explore your various files to see which ones have a COM interface and learn more about the interface.

Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 10:25 pm

Coolio, thanks a TON Zugg. :D

Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 12:10 am

On that note what does 'Error loading type library/DLL.' mean?

Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 2:45 am

Probably the file that you loaded doesn't have any COM interface. I didn't write the program, so I really have no idea, and it's been years since I used it. But that would be my best guess. Most DLLs are not COM interfaces but are more traditional non-COM DLLs (which you can't call from CMUD).