Monthly Archives: October 2012

The new FILESYSTEM object

As we mentioned earlier the decision was taken to deprecate the Utility function, but we still needed to provide the equivalent functionality by some other means. The obvious candidate to update here was the existing SYSTEM object, but rather than overloading it with a whole raft of new members, all of which were filing-system related, we took the decision to create a new object instead, and thus the FILESYSTEM object was born.

The FILESYSTEM object, like the SYSTEM one, is managed internally by the Presentation Server and simply exposes some common Windows Shell directory and file-based functionality to Basic+. As you’ll see below there are some new properties and methods that were not part of the old Utility function, but we’ve also taken the opportunity to enhance some of the existing methods as well – they now hook into the Windows API SHFileOperation function thereby offering better system integration, such as using standard Windows copy/move dialogs and exposing “Undo” functionality.

Here’s a summary of the FILESYSTEM object interface that you’ll find in the new version:

Properties

Property	Dev	Run	Get	Set	Description
CURRENTDIR		X	X	X	Provides access to the current working directory.
DRIVELIST		X	X		Returns a dynamic array of attached drive letters.
FILEOPRESULT		X	X		Returns the most recent result code from a FILESYSTEM object method call.
SYSTEMDIR		X	X		Returns the OS System directory.
TEMPDIR		X	X		Returns the user’s Temp directory.
WINDOWSDIR		X	X		Returns the Windows directory.

Methods

Method	Description
COPYDIR	Copies an entire directory and sub-directories to a new location.
COPYFILES	Copies one or more files to a new location.
DELETEFILES	Deletes one or more files.
DIREXISTS	Checks to see if a directory exists.
FILEEXISTS	Checks to see if a file exists.
GETABSOLUTEPATH	Returns an absolute path from a relative path
GETLONGPATH	Converts a short path to its long path form
GETRELATIVEPATH	Returns a relative path from an absolute path
GETSHORTPATH	Converts a long path to its short path (i.e. MS-DOS “8.3”) form
GETSPECIALDIR	Returns the path to a “special” OS folder such as “My Documents”, AppData and so on.
MAKEDIR	Creates a directory or nested directory path.
MOVEDIR	Moves an entire directory and sub-directories to a new location.
MOVEFILES	Moves one or more files to a new location.
REMOVEDIR	Removes a directory.
RENAMEDIR	Renames a directory.
RENAMEFILE	Renames a file.

Of course this is probably not a final list, so please feel free to leave us a comment if you think of anything that would make a good addition here.

The SYSTEM object – some new properties

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As the project moves along and work progresses you should see many new items added to the object interfaces in the Presentation Server. One of the main reasons for this is to try and reduce the amount of times you as a developer have to call the Windows API directly – we realize that most OI programmers aren’t C programmers and so we’re trying to save you the pain of dealing with static data types, C-structures and pointers wherever possible.

In light of this we’ve made some changes to the SYSTEM object: As well as bringing across many of the existing Utility services (mentioned previously here) there’s also some brand-new properties and methods too (and we’re not finished yet).

Here’s a quick look at some of the new SYSTEM properties we’ve added so far:

DPI property

This property returns the Windows DPI setting (96, 120 or 144) so you can handle custom scaling in your app if it’s running at a different DPI than the system you designed it on.

ENVVARLIST property

This property returns a list of OS environment variables (just as if you’d typed “set” at the DOS command prompt).

FONTLIST property

This property returns a list of font names that are available on the system.

INTERACTIVE property

This property returns TRUE$ if OpenInsight has been launched in an interactive Windows session (i.e. it has a “desktop”). It returns FALSE$ if OpenInsight has been launched in a non-interactive session such as from a Windows Service process.

MONITORLIST property

This property returns a dynamic array of monitor information. Each field in the array contains the following details for each monitor:

Monitor Handle
Monitor rectangle (left, top, right, bottom)
Monitor work area (left, top, right, bottom)
Flags
Device name.

TYPES property

This property returns a list of the object types that the Presentation Server supports (EDITBOX, LISTBOX, WINDOW and so on). We’ll cover this in more detail in a later post when we look at some of the properties that expose an object’s type-information to provide a “reflection” interface for the toolset.

That’s just a few of the new additions – we’ll post more as they appear. If there’s any others you think should be added please leave a comment and tell us.

The Utility function

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In our previous Send_Message posting we mentioned that we had deprecated another well-known function, and I’m sure you can guess which one from the title of this post – Yep, we deprecated the Utility function!

One of the things we’ve tried to do in this release is to tidy up and standardize the interface between your Basic+ programs and the Presentation Server, providing a standard object-based model based on properties, methods and events. The Utility function has always been been an exception to this however, essentially providing a shorthand way of executing what should be SYSTEM object methods, thereby breaking the paradigm.

In light of this the Utility function has been deprecated and it’s functionally exposed as properties and methods of the SYSTEM and FILESYSTEM objects instead. Utility itself still works, but it is now a shell that maps to the two aforementioned objects (more of which we’ll cover later).

In case you’re interested here’s how the Utility services map to the SYSTEM and FILESYSTEM objects:

Utility Service	Object	Type
BEEP	SYSTEM	Method
COPYFILE	FILESYSTEM	Method
CREATE	SYSTEM	Method
CURSOR	SYSTEM	Property [S]
CHOOSECOLOR	SYSTEM	Method
CHOOSEFONT	SYSTEM	Method
CHOOSEFILE	SYSTEM + FILESYSTEM	Method
CHOOSEDIR	SYSTEM + FILESYSTEM	Method
DESTROY	SYSTEM	Method
DIALOG_BOX	SYSTEM	Method
FLUSH	SYSTEM	Method
GET_EVENT	SYSTEM	Method
GETLOGICALDRIVES	FILESYSTEM	Property [G] (DRIVELIST)
HANDLE_BY_CURSOR	SYSTEM	Method
HOOKCTRL	SYSTEM	Method
IUNKNOWN_RELEASE	SYSTEM	Method
LOAD_PICTURE	SYSTEM	Method
MAKEDIR	FILESYSTEM	Method
OBJECTID	SYSTEM	Method
OPENAPP	SYSTEM	Method
OBJECT_BY_CURSOR	SYSTEM	Method
OBJECTLIST	SYSTEM	Method
PRINTSETUP	SYSTEM	Method
POST_WINMSG	SYSTEM	Method
PICTURE_PROPS	SYSTEM	Method
REMOVEDIR	FILESYSTEM	Method
RENAMEDIR	FILESYSTEM	Method
RENAMEFILE	FILESYSTEM	Method
RUN	SYSTEM	Method
RUNHELP	SYSTEM	Method
RUNWIN	SYSTEM	Method
SHELLEXECUTE	SYSTEM	Method
SEND_WINMSG	SYSTEM	Method
TEXTRECT	SYSTEM	Method
UNHOOKCTRL	SYSTEM	Method
WINCOUNT	SYSTEM	Property [G]
WINDOW_BY_POS	SYSTEM	Method

[EDIT: 19 Nov 15, Updated CHOOSEDIR and CHOOSEFILE methods to include FILESYSTEM]

(Disclaimer: This article is based on preliminary information and may be subject to change in the final release version of OpenInsight 10).

Send_Message and Exec_Method

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OK, so we deprecated the Send_Message function for OI 10…

… but before you worry about your apps being broken don’t despair because it still works as it ever has. It has actually been replaced by a new function named Exec_Method which exposes the same interface as Send_Message, with the added bonus that it can support more than four parameters, so it’s basically a straight drop-in replacement when you need to use it.

Why did we do this? Well, there’s a couple of reasons really:

When talking about object-based systems the usual jargon includes references to properties, methods and events. However, with OI we’ve always used the term “messages” when referring to an object’s methods because of the Send_Message function. We thought it was about time to use more standard terminology, like we do with the Basic+ OleExecMethod function for example.
Send_Message is very close to the name of the core Windows API SendMessage function and sometimes it’s just too confusing (and annoying) trying to explain which one you actually mean when you’re discussing how to manipulate an object.

Actually Send_Message isn’t the only casualty, we’ve deprecated another well-known function too, but we’ll leave the details of that one for another post…

[Edit: 24 Apr 13 – Call_Method renamed to Exec_Method]

Welcome…

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… to the “Building OpenInsight 10” blog. As work progresses on the next version of OpenInsight this is where you’ll find the latest news and information on some of the new features and changes to the product taking place during the development process.

Right now work is well underway on the new Presentation Server (RevPS) so we’ll be taking a look at that in the coming months. Just to whet your appetite here’s a few things that we’re working on for version 10:

64-bit version
High DPI aware
Full Windows Common Control support
Improved Edit Table
Some new controls (e.g. Panel, Property Grid)
Improved OLE support
Non visual object support (e.g. HTTP clients and servers)
Extensible architecture

Of course there’s more, but if we told you everything here there’d be nothing to cover at next year’s conference in Nashville!

Anyway, we’ll try and make regular postings but there’s still a lot of work to do before release, so if you don’t see a post for a week or two it’s not because we’ve given up – it’s because we’re really really really busy.