#85892 - 2002-06-03 06:54 PM
Type Library Viewer for Kix?
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Stevie
Starting to like KiXtart
Registered: 2002-01-09
Posts: 199
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Hi all,
Following in the spirit of my last post I'm posing a question: Could the kix community make use of a stand-alone type library viewer? If so, and if there's nothing else out there that people are using, then I was thinking of writing one.
For those of you not sure what that is, a type library viewer looks into DLL, EXE, and TLB files and extracts information on the objects, methods, properties and events contained within it. It basically would provide the same functionality as the "Object Browser" in Visual Studio, but as a stand-alone app.
From my perspective something like this would be pretty useful so that people writing scripts wouldn't have to refer to MSDN or other on-line sites for basic syntax information or to recall the name of a method you just can't quite remember.
Anyway, if there's already one out there then please let me know where to get it and I'll use it. Otherwise, I'll go ahead and write one.
Thanks.
Steve B
_________________________
Stevie
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#85893 - 2002-06-03 07:01 PM
Re: Type Library Viewer for Kix?
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Chris S.
MM club member
Registered: 2002-03-18
Posts: 2368
Loc: Earth
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Here's a stand-alone that I've used:
http://www.allapi.net/agnet/apiguide.shtml
Includes info, parameters, and VB samples.
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#85896 - 2002-06-03 08:30 PM
Re: Type Library Viewer for Kix?
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Radimus
Moderator
Registered: 2000-01-06
Posts: 5187
Loc: Tampa, FL
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please do it... I have to use the Force here (also referred to as guessing)
Needless to say, I end up posting it here for Shawn or Kent or others figure out for me.
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#85898 - 2002-06-03 11:06 PM
Re: Type Library Viewer for Kix?
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BrianTX
Korg Regular
Registered: 2002-04-01
Posts: 895
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#85900 - 2002-06-04 05:56 PM
Re: Type Library Viewer for Kix?
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BrianTX
Korg Regular
Registered: 2002-04-01
Posts: 895
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#85901 - 2002-06-04 11:38 PM
Re: Type Library Viewer for Kix?
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Shawn
Administrator
Registered: 1999-08-13
Posts: 8611
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Hmmm, for a "light-weight" viewer, that utility sure has alot of "known issues" and "caveats" and "possible dependencies" (like the VB runtimes?) ...
Plus, it sounds like there are some known issues with the ITypeLib interface itself in that it states that there are "common issues" between this viewer and OLE Viewer.
But from a look-and-feel standpoint, I think this viewer has things pretty much nailed. Wonder Steve, if the viewer you were planning was going to be C++ or VB based, and that if you might have quite the coding challenge ahead of you, to make a more stable viewer. If its anything like your editor (great piece of work by the way) I'm sure it will be
-Shawn [ 04 June 2002, 23:48: Message edited by: Shawn ]
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#85905 - 2002-06-05 04:10 PM
Re: Type Library Viewer for Kix?
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Radimus
Moderator
Registered: 2000-01-06
Posts: 5187
Loc: Tampa, FL
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well, I'd thing that some developers looking ahead would use/have the .NET, but I don't see many people jumping on the .NET corporate wise for at least a year or 2 (or more).
How many people here still post questions about wintendo machines (many probably on 486s and p100s)...
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#85906 - 2002-06-06 12:40 AM
Re: Type Library Viewer for Kix?
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Shawn
Administrator
Registered: 1999-08-13
Posts: 8611
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Steve, from my standpoint (user), this would be my order of preference:
1) C++ 2) VB 3) C#
Don't know about others, but I tend to be "on the move" quite a bit, like carrying my tools with me or at least be able to get them in & running real quick. C++ obviously no issue there. VB, at least you got a good chance of having the runtimes already there, C# w/ 20MB+ download, i mean, I got it here at home, but its nowhere to be found at the office. A 20MB download as needed doesn't really turn me on either (imho).
Now ... if I were in your shoes - I would go with whatever language you used to write your KixScripts Editor in. I mean, this viewer would obviously make a wonderful addition to your editor - so why not kill two birds with one stone here ? So if you implemented the viewer as a class, or as an ActiveX control in itself (with a stand-alone wrapper), that would make your life easier for sure - assuming of course at the end of day you wanted to roll it in.
-Shawn
oops, forgot about the MFC library, hmmm, ever consider ATL/WTL ?
-Shawn [ 06 June 2002, 01:30: Message edited by: Shawn ]
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#85908 - 2002-06-06 09:25 PM
Re: Type Library Viewer for Kix?
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Shawn
Administrator
Registered: 1999-08-13
Posts: 8611
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Steve, my two cents, I think the viewer rolled into the Editor would still be very usefull. Intellisense is great, in fact, it one of my favorite IDE features. But to me, intellisense alone is only half of the battle. The other half is browsing through the myriad of COM libraries and ProgIDs, looking for something that your not sure of, or looking for new possibilities that one didn't even know existed, yeah ?
Its your call, but could you imagine the Visual Basic Editor without the Object Viewer ? You know the score on that - using intellisense, one would have to create an instance of everything they wanted to browse, plus, maybe miss-out on the embedded help text buried inside TLB's (unless you were going to intellisense that as well).
Anyway, I'm really looking forward to seeing your finished product. Hopefully you will allow kixtart.org to be beta testers, hopefully even alpha testers
-Shawn [ 06 June 2002, 21:28: Message edited by: Shawn ]
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#85910 - 2002-06-07 02:44 PM
Re: Type Library Viewer for Kix?
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Shawn
Administrator
Registered: 1999-08-13
Posts: 8611
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Steve, sorry for ranting off-topic there. Not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I should know better than that. And in regards to C# vs C/VB, I would use your viewer even if it was coded in COBOL or RPG4
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