On 04.05.2022 14:51, Rony G. Flatscher wrote:
While overhauling/updating the slides in the Windows section, one question arises: should the
IBM/Lotus Notes, IBM/Lotus WordPro and IBM/Lotus 1-2-3 samples in in "samples\ole\apps" be kept?
Nowadays probably nobody has these applications installed and operable since IBM pulled them from
the market. Maybe with the exception of IBM/Lotus Notes? Affected: "samp04.rex", "samp05.rex",
"samp06.rex" (with "samp06.mwp"), "samp07.rex". (Or moving them into a subdirectory named
'archive' or so?)
Runtime errors or not working correctly, so need updates:
* "samp08.rex": causes runtime condition (file not found)
* "samp11.rex": fetching IBM's current stock price does not work anymore;
leave it as is or try
to come up with a different solution?
* "samp13.rex": causes runtime condition, if the user overlooks the popup and
first closes the
MSIE window and then clicks on the popup causing "quit" to be sent to
"msie" which does not
exist anymore at that point in time; can be probably "healed" with a syntax
handler that ends
the script anyway
* "samp14.rex": causes runtime condition if MS Access is not available
Also note: Microsoft is doing its best to kill Internet Explorer in lieu of Chromium. It is to be
expected that the OLE access remains for years to come as many little scripts and programs
probably employ it to e.g. fetch web pages.
Walter was kind enough to test them, here the output of running these apps, that should
demonstrate how easy it is to use ooRexx for interacting with Windows via OLE. Actually this is
really easy, but if the samples do not work (anymore) it gives the (very!) wrong impression, that
ooRexx cannot really handle it. Here the output:
D:\ole\apps>rexx samp04
Please enter your name
Walter
Please enter a list of recipients (email addresses). Press enter after
each entry (end list
with 'Q').
pa...@chello.ar
Q
*-* Compiled method "INIT" with scope "OLEObject".
*-* Compiled method "NEW" with scope "Object".
51 *-* Method NEW with scope "OLEObject" in package "REXX" (no source
available).
66 *-* Session = .OLEObject~New("Notes.NotesSession")
Error 98 running REXX line 51: Execution error.
Error 98.909: Class "Notes.NotesSession" not found.
D:\ole\apps>rexx samp05
*-* Compiled method "INIT" with scope "OLEObject".
*-* Compiled method "NEW" with scope "Object".
51 *-* Method NEW with scope "OLEObject" in package "REXX" (no source
available).
52 *-* WordProApp = .OLEObject~New("WordPro.Application")
Error 98 running REXX line 51: Execution error.
Error 98.909: Class "WordPro.Application" not found.
D:\ole\apps>rexx samp06
Please enter your name:
Walter
Please enter your phone number:
2147664
*-* Compiled method "INIT" with scope "OLEObject".
*-* Compiled method "NEW" with scope "Object".
51 *-* Method NEW with scope "OLEObject" in package "REXX" (no source
available).
74 *-* WordProApp = .OLEObject~New("WordPro.Application")
Error 98 running REXX line 51: Execution error.
Error 98.909: Class "WordPro.Application" not found.
D:\ole\apps>rexx samp07
*-* Compiled method "INIT" with scope "OLEObject".
*-* Compiled method "NEW" with scope "Object".
51 *-* Method NEW with scope "OLEObject" in package "REXX" (no source
available).
50 *-* Workbook = .OLEObject~New("Lotus123.Workbook")
Error 98 running REXX line 51: Execution error.
Error 98.909: Class "Lotus123.Workbook" not found.
D:\ole\apps>rexx samp08
Created C:\Users\Walter\AppData\Local\Temp\OLERexx. Press enter to continue
*-* Compiled method "UNKNOWN" with scope "OLEObject".
95 *-* Documents~Open(FileName)
Error 92 running D:\ole\apps\samp08.rex line 95: OLE error.
Error 92.906: OLE exception: Code: 800a1436 Source: Microsoft Word
Description: Wir konnten
Ihre Datei leider nicht finden. Wurde sie verschoben, umbenannt oder
gel?scht??
(C:\Users\Walter\AppData\...\Temp\OLERexx).
D:\ole\apps>rexx samp11
Getting stock price from IBM Internet page.
Using a not visible InternetExplorer.
IBM stocks are at <could not read stock price>.
Web page has likely changed format.
D:\ole\apps>rexx samp13
*-* Compiled method "UNKNOWN" with scope "OLEObject".
110 *-* myIE~quit
Error 92 running D:\ole\apps\samp13.rex line 110: OLE error.
Error 92.901: An unknown OLE error occurred (HRESULT=800706BA).
D:\ole\apps>
D:\ole\apps>rexx samp14
*-* Compiled method "UNKNOWN" with scope "OLEObject".
71 *-* appAccess~NewCurrentDatabase(strDB)
Error 92 running D:\ole\apps\samp14.rex line 71: OLE error.
Error 92.906: OLE exception: Code: 800a7f46 Source: unavailable
Description: Der angegebene
Dateiname konnte nicht zum Erstellen einer Datenbank verwendet werden.
Geben Sie einen anderen
Datenbanknamen an..
---
A note: "curl" has been available on Unix machines for a long time, Windows 10 includes it too,
such that it may make sense to supply an example to take advantage of it (using the curl command
with "address ... with"). A colleague has come up with such samples for the new introductory
slides (for ooRexx and Windows' OLE; he also has been preparing introductory nutshell samples for
Excel, Word and PowerPoint, maybe Outlook as well), whom I can ask to donate them to the ooRexx
project.
In this context of using ooRexx to interact with Windows programs via OLE/COM I updated an older
set of tools that uses the registry and OLEObject to query the available ProgIDs/CLSIDs and create
HTML-rendered documentations of the published APIs, if any. Currently it can be fetched from
<https://wi.wu.ac.at/rgf/wu/lehre/autowin/material/resources/oleinfo.zip>. The readme.txt explains
the tool (it is rather easy, e.g. "createOleInfo.rex InternetExplorer.Application" which includes
the constants at the end or "createOleInfo.rex InternetExplorer.Application 1" in a page-saving
reference format). I can supply it for inclusion in the ooRexx project as it allows to document
any Windows application with a ProgID or CLSID and an OLE interface in a sensible (easy to grasp)
manner.
---
So the question is, what to do?
Not communicating is a problem. A community only is visible, if it communicates.
From now on, if no one refers to postings, ideas, I will follow the simple Apache Software
Foundation rule that if no one objects it is interpreted as a "go ahead". This follows the old rule:
silence is taken as approval.
If having invested time in improvements, fixes and the like, because silence was taken as approval,
I will not roll back such work myself, but whoever objects later giving sound, substantiated reasons
and gets approval by other developers, will have to do the roll back. This is fairly easy as we are
using a source code control system.
Any comments to this?
---
Regarding "samples\ole\apps": whenever I have free time to tackle that in one piece, I will go ahead
and rename all the samples such that the interested lurker of samples can infer what application the
samples use, maybe even creating a simple readme.txt file that briefly describes what gets
demonstrated. Reason being that no one objected and makes the samples better accessible for
interested programmers.
In addition I plan to add a few new samples, also from a colleague who created some interesting
ones, e.g. using curl (available on Unix systems, in the meantime also on Windows) in various
interesting ways.
---rony
P.S.: After the above planned changes I will have to re-alot my time to different projects, so not
planning any initiatives from myself until ooRexx 5 gets released, with the possible exception of
the important, already available multithreaded trace patch from Jean Louis (cf. the discussions at
the beginning of September 2021!) which adds *incredible* value to debugging multithreaded ooRexx
applications (and which also would put ooRexx in front of many programming languages with a need to
debug multithreaded programs). My students would save a *lot* of time and effort having this great
feature available in ooRexx. If a release of ooRexx 5 is planned in the short term and therefore
imminent at this point in time, then IMHO the concurrent trace should be added right after the release.
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