How to use Progress to develop program as background jobs like MSN style ??

[franktang]

Dear all,

I not sure if necessary to use progress to develop some kind of program running under windows such as MSN or other programs that could running on background and has an icon in task bar.

If possiable, please give me some comments about it.

Thank you very much.

Frank

 

[RealHeavyDude]

You don't say anything 'bout your Progress or OpenEdge version.

You don't give us any hint what it is, that should be done by that background job. That's essential information to recommend you using the ABL or not.

The ABL should be your first choice when you're accessing a Progress database - but, in the end, even for that it's not necessary as the database supports SQL92 (at least beginning with Progress Version 9).

Regards, RealHeavyDude.

 

[lord_icon]

Greetings,

With the limited information you provided. I suggest looking a this keyword;


RUN programname PERSISTENT

Bye For Now (BFN)

 

[franktang]

Hi, thank you for your reply.

My progress is 9.1D, I want to develop a graphic interface it will be an icon in task bar like MSN icon and when I double click it, this window will pop out on screen.

BR,
Frank

 

[rstanciu]

Take 3 days of training ... else you will spend 3 month on this forum to learn 4GL.
Contact your Progress Representative or any Progress Partener.

 

[lord_icon]

That took some clarification, I 'think' I understand what you require.
Dropping this msn analogy - confused things.
Put simply, is all that you require is a shortcut on the desktop or any where you wish it to be placed.
This shortcut then launches your application?

 

[RealHeavyDude]

The Progress window widget has a property "show-in-Taskbar" which is checked per default. As soon as you run the procedure (.w) it will be show as an icon in the Windows task bar.

But that is not a background job, as far as my understanding of a background job goes, you can do the same with almost every other Windows GUI application.

I am still not getting what your question is. Is your question whether you're able to develop a GUI application that behaves, more or less, like other Windows GUI applications?

Regards, RealHeavyDude.

 

[TomBascom]

9.1D is, of course, ancient, obsolete and unsupported.

If you want to write modern .NET GUI applications you should be using 10.2B and the OpenEdge Advanced GUI for .NET. Futzing around with something that is 10 years old isn't likely to give you the results that you are looking for.

 

[FrancoisL]

He wants his application to appear in the notification area next to the time when he closes (runs in the background) his application just like MSN does when you close it . Instead of closing msn leaves a little icon in the notification area of the task bar and double clicking on it brings it back up .

Here is an explanation of the Notification Area : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa511448.aspx

I would be surprised that you can do that in 9.1D without doing direct calls to the Windows API to do it.

 

[rstanciu]

This is out off topic, sorry, but I'm not agree with you Tom.
We are in 2010, the television is in 3D, we pay all with a credit card,
shoping on-line, we dont find any phone box on the street, GPS in the car,
SmartPhone on the pocket. The world is not the same as 10 years ago.
Progress (OE) is always staying on a GUI/CHUI with a big green monitor.
GUI for .Net ... yes ... but not today, I don't buy this.
Today is the Smartphone/RichWeb applications I buy.
In the '70 the discution was: Fortran or Cobol, and C++ was the winner.
Today we are on the warr with .Net/Java, and ...
who will be the winner ... Google/Apple/Blackberry (smart .Net/Java )

 

[franktang]

He wants his application to appear in the notification area next to the time when he closes (runs in the background) his application just like MSN does when you close it . Instead of closing msn leaves a little icon in the notification area of the task bar and double clicking on it brings it back up .

Here is an explanation of the Notification Area : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa511448.aspx

I would be surprised that you can do that in 9.1D without doing direct calls to the Windows API to do it.

FrancoisL,

Thank you very much.
I will try it ( use 9.1D call Windows API), I think it is a good way but I am not sure if it's working.

Thanks again.

Frank

 

[TomBascom]

Maybe.

On the other hand I did say IF you want to...

On the subject of mobile applications - I forget where I saw it but I recently read an article that noted that penetration of "apps" into the enterprise simply hasn't happened. Despite all the hype there aren't any except for a few niche things.

 

[D.Cook]

(referring to the original post)

I did this once. I created a .NET "Agent" app which simply put the icon in the notification area and had a right-click menu. When you clicked on a menu-item (or double-clicked the icon), it would send messages to the ABL program, eg Show/Hide or run a procedure. The Show/Hide function would change the value of the 'hidden' attribute of the ABL window, which from memory will both hide the window and remove it from the taskbar.

Sending the messages to the ABL program: first I think I did this by exposing the ABL app as a COM object, and accessing that from the .NET. Then I settled on using sockets, can't remember why, but I did.

To use sockets, check out the socket functions in the ABL reference, and examples on the net. On the .NET end, I used System.Net.Sockets.

It might not be the only way, but I hope this helps.
Just remember, before you start make sure you absolutely must use Progress -- if you could work out a way to achieve your goals entirely with a .NET app then that might be simpler..

 

[D.Cook]

Or maybe you just want a tool like this, which allows you to minimise any program to the system tray.
http://www.actualtools.com/titlebuttons/minimize_to_system_tray_any_program.shtml

 

[Cecil]

I did this about 8-9 years ago and I used some complex WIN32 API. You might just as easy use an ActiveX control. http://www.freevbcode.com/ShowCode.Asp?ID=996