Porting VB6 to .Net - DDE replacement?

[James Minns]

Hi,
I'm porting some legacy software to .Net; its a communications driver that
speaks to the outside world via DDE.
Since MS dropped DDE support in VB after version 6, is there some
workaround?

Maybe a couple of classes, one to embed in the form to be the "link source"
and another to add in a class derived from textbox?

I looked at the ddeml messages but the implementation would be horrendous.
Any ideas?
Thanks, James

[aaron.kempf]

wow.. no idea good luck & sorry

isn't DDE like _HELLA_ old?

[James Minns]

<aa*********@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:11********************@j73g2000cwa.googlegrou ps.com...

wow.. no idea good luck & sorry

isn't DDE like _HELLA_ old?

Yes, old, and still in use for communication server, (and by explorer -
every time you double-click a document, explorer uses DDE to tell a program
to open the file).

James

[Brian Gideon]

James,

Like you said the DDEML can be used from within VB.NET. But you're
right, it's considerably more difficult than what some people would
think for several reasons. I have a completely free and open source
library that has an easy interface for using DDE in .NET applications
that may work for you.

<http://workspaces.gotdotnet.com/ndde>

Brian

James Minns wrote:

Hi,
I'm porting some legacy software to .Net; its a communications driver that
speaks to the outside world via DDE.
Since MS dropped DDE support in VB after version 6, is there some
workaround?

Maybe a couple of classes, one to embed in the form to be the "link source"
and another to add in a class derived from textbox?

I looked at the ddeml messages but the implementation would be horrendous.
Any ideas?
Thanks, James

[aaron.kempf]

wow. crazy.

what do you mean by communication server?

can't you either hook an API call; or setup a filesystemwatcher for
watching for files moving on a per-drive basis instead of piggybacking
onto explorer??
-Aaron

[Brian Gideon]

Aaron,

I assume this post was meant for James. I'll answer it anyway.

There are still applications today who's only mechanism for
communicating with other processes on the operating system is DDE. DDE
applications that publish data are typically called servers while those
that subscribe or request data are called clients. The communication
server the OP is speaking of could be a gateway into a PLC or some
other application that provides realtime data. It's hard to say.

I think the OP was only presenting an example of where DDE is used when
he mentioned explorer. I didn't see where he mentioned using DDE to
capture file system events.

You're right though. DDE is really old and should be avoided whenever
possible. It's terrible to work with.

Brian

aa*********@gmail.com wrote:

wow. crazy.

what do you mean by communication server?

can't you either hook an API call; or setup a filesystemwatcher for
watching for files moving on a per-drive basis instead of piggybacking
onto explorer??
-Aaron

[aaron.kempf]

i just see a lot of options inside of MS access for 'ignore DDE
refresh' and stuff like that; i wish i knew what those did in real
world.

i remember that goldmine used to use a bunch of DDE calls back in the
day i think also

[James Minns]

Brian, thanks for sharing this code!
James

"Brian Gideon" <br*********@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:11*********************@i40g2000cwc.googlegro ups.com...

James,

Like you said the DDEML can be used from within VB.NET. But you're
right, it's considerably more difficult than what some people would
think for several reasons. I have a completely free and open source
library that has an easy interface for using DDE in .NET applications
that may work for you.

<http://workspaces.gotdotnet.com/ndde>

Brian

James Minns wrote:

Hi,
I'm porting some legacy software to .Net; its a communications driver
that
speaks to the outside world via DDE.
Since MS dropped DDE support in VB after version 6, is there some
workaround?

[x]