Monthly Archives: December 2012

The Reflection API

2 Replies

From a tool-developers point of view one of the weaker areas in the Presentation Server has always been the lack of a “reflection API”, i.e. a way to discover what properties, methods and events an object actually supports at runtime.  This in turn has led to creating manual lists and records of object attributes, bringing with it with the inherent difficulty of keeping this information up-to-date as new features are added.

Primarily designed with the new PS-based Form Designer in mind, this shortcoming has been addressed in version 10 with the addition of the following new methods to the SYSTEM object:

  • REFLECTPROPERTIES
  • REFLECTMETHODS
  • REFLECTEVENTS

Each of these methods takes a single argument which is the type of object to query:

e.g.

buttonProperties = exec_Method( "SYSTEM", "REFLECTPROPERTIES", "PUSHBUTTON" )
buttonMethods    = exec_Method( "SYSTEM", "REFLECTMETHODS", "PUSHBUTTON")
buttonEvents     = exec_Method( "SYSTEM", "REFLECTEVENTS", "PUSHBUTTON" )

Each method in turn returns a dynamic array of information describing the requested attribute type:

  • REFLECTPROPERTIES returns the name of each property and the type of the data it represents.  It also identifies the context that the property is valid for (Devtime/Runtime/Get/Set).
  • REFLECTMETHODS returns the name of each method, along with a list of arguments the method accepts and the type of data each argument should contain.
  • REFLECTEVENTS returns the name of each event the object type can raise along with the names and data types of arguments passed to an event handler.

Note that when these methods return the type of data for a property or argument there are some cases where only a broad hint is given – Basic+ is an untyped language so it is not really feasible to accurately describe some types using a simple set of flags – e.g. in the case where an argument is a complex dynamic array containing a variety of other core data types such a strings and numbers.

Whilst aimed mainly at developers who write development tools for OpenInsight, this API may still be of interest for those of you who like to write your own diagnostic and debugging tools – when a new property, method or event is added to the Presentation Server it is clearly exposed thereby reducing the likelihood of it remaining hidden and undocumented.

[Edit: 09 Jun 22 – Corrected method names (removed underscores)]

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

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

The RXI Files – Part II

12 Replies

In the previous post where we introduced the new RXI files we mentioned some new command line switches added to OpenInsight 10. In this post we’ll take a look at them and describe what they do.

/TB (taskBarID)

Under Windows 7 and 8 multiple instances of an executable launched from the same directory are grouped under one icon on the taskbar, making navigating between them quite tedious. To allow an executable to override this behavior Microsoft introduced a new application property called the “Application User Model ID” – a simple string that can be applied to an executable instance to differentiate it from other sibling instances, thereby allowing them to be un-grouped.

Windows assigns a default value to this property at runtime based on the executable name and the starting directory.  The OpenInsight /TB switch (or taskBarID element in an RXI file) allows you to set your own unique value for this property so that your application can be differentiated on the Windows taskbar (A read-only property called TASKBARID is exposed by the SYSTEM object at runtime to provide access to this value).

The Application User Model ID must be set before any forms are created by an executable which is why it can only be set via the RXI file or the command line switch.

If you wish to find out more details about the Application User Model ID please see the MSDN documentation about the SetCurrentProcessExplicitAppUserModelID function.

/SI (singleInstance)

This is a boolean (1/0) flag that ensures there is only one instance of the specified OI application executing on a workstation.  Any other OI applications from the same executable are unaffected.

/EL (elevate)

This is a boolean flag (1/0) that specifies if the application requires Administrator privileges when it is launched. If this switch is set to “1” and the Windows user is not an administrator they will be asked to provide Administrator level credentials before they can continue (via the standard Windows UAC prompt).

/MD (minDisplaySecs)

When displaying a banner image file at startup this switch specifies the minimum number of seconds to display the banner for.

/EP (enginePath)

This switch specifies an alternative OpenEngine path (normally the Presentation Server expects to load OpenEngine from the same directory where it is located).

/2D (useD2D)

This is a boolean flag (1/0) that specifies if the system should use Direct2D technology for rendering when available.  By default OpenInsight will attempt to use Direct2D where it can (Windows Vista SP2, Windows 7 and later), but it can be forced to use GDI rendering instead if this flag is set to “0”.

/DP (useDPIScaling)

This is a boolean flag (1/0) that specifies if the application should automatically scale coordinates when used on a high-DPI system.

[Edit: 01 Feb 13 – AM switch renamed to TB and taskBarID]

[Edit: 08 Jan 13 – Added DPI Scaling modifications]

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