Well I just about managed to work it all out, but it does need some proper documenting! I now have an external which allows a Rev application to interact directly with Winamp. Thanks for your suggestions Alex.
If anyone else needs an external to control winamp let me know (it implements all but a few of the functions listed here: http://www.winamp.com/nsdn/winamp2x/dev/sdk/api.jhtml) - winamp versions 1 and 2 only (3 is not worth having anyway!) Cheers. J -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Alex Rice Sent: 30 July 2003 19:40 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: How do I make an external ? On Wednesday, July 30, 2003, at 11:36 AM, Jez wrote: > I want to make an external for Revolution to access a few of the > functions provided in User32.dll. I do have experience of visual C > programming. I found a directory "External SDK" in my old 1.1.1 > Revolution directory, but nothing under 2.0, and I don't understand > what's in there anyway. Are there any guidelines anywhere ? Hi, I am not an expert at writing externals, but I have been in the same boat as you recently. Information on writing externals is very scarce. Here are some suggestions: 1) The "External SDK": look at external.c mainly. This is your primary reference. It's not commented very well so you gotta guess what's going on. Look at the associated .rev stack. It has two apps in the external: Game of Life, and Image Compositing. Why it's not included with RR 2.0 I would like to know. 2) Post questions to this mailing list. A few people here have been coding externals in C for years. 3) _Hypertalk Script Language Guide_ by Apple Computer, in Appendix A, has the closest thing I can find to a documentation of the externals API. The calling interfaces are changed, but the function names are the same. Unfortunately there are more Pascal examples than C examples. 4) RR said a tutorial on writing externals is in the works. Right RR :-)? 5) So web searches for XFCN and XCMD. XFCN stands for "external function", a transcript function handler that's implemented in native code. XCMD is "external command" or a transcript command handler that's implemented in native code. Hope this helps, Alex Rice, Software Developer Architectural Research Consultants, Inc. http://ARCplanning.com _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
