Load a popup program

[Jose Antonio Esteva R]

Hello:

I need to load a popup program (TSR) from another EXE program,
Iit is possible?

I try using: SHELL "MyProg" and seems to work but the TSR not
works, Can somebody help me?

Thank you,

JAER, Mexico.

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[Michael Mattias]

Not really. A TSR works by "being there first", and if the program over which it is supposed to run is already running, it can't do its thing.

There may be some esoteric way to do it, but I don't have a clue what that may be.

MCM

[Mel Bishop]

What I would do is see if there are one or more specific actions
that the .EXE program performs. Then, program the TSR to see if
it will react with that.

Failing that, you should be able to make it pop-up with a key
press but somebody would have to be at the keyboard for that...


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[JOSE ROCA]

José,

The TSR program must be loaded first. You can activate it
stuffing the keyboard buffer with the activation keys that
you have defined with POPUP KEY.

Here is a routine that you can use for stuffing the keyboard:

SUB StuffBuf (Keys$)
   Work$ = LEFT$(Keys$, 15)          '15 characters maximum
   Length% = LEN(Work$)

   DEF SEG = 0
   POKE &H41A, &H1E                          'buffer head
   POKE &H41C, &H1E + Length% * &H2          'buffer tail

   FOR X% = 1 TO Length%                     'POKE each char
      POKE &H41C + X% * &H2, ASC(MID$(Work$, X%))
   NEXT X%

   DEF SEG

   Work$ = ""
END SUB

Regards


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[Lance Edmonds]

Originally posted by Mel Bishop:
What I would do is see if there are one or more specific actions
that the .EXE program performs. Then, program the TSR to see if
it will react with that.

Sounds like some kind of spy-type application.

Specifically, what "specific actions" do you specifically want to capture? ( )

That is, maybe your TSR should perform like an ISR...? (ISR=Interrupt Service Routine).



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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Mel Bishop]

[quote]Originally posted by Lance Edmonds:

Specifically, what "specific actions" do you specifically want to capture?

I wasn't referring to anything particular. It depends on what the
.EXE does. Maybe...

1. Print a specific string to the screen.

2. If it uses the com port, maybe he could trigger on that.

3. If it can trigger on an ISR, hey go fer that

4. Trigger on an LPT operation.

I was just offering some possible suggestions. It's been my
experience that if someone says "it can't be done", I have to
ask "why not".

Try something and see what happens.


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[Lance Edmonds]

Mel, I think you might have missed the smiley face in my message -- it was intended as a light-hearted jest, nothing more.

However, asking "why" is perfectly fine... I do it myself.

The problem here is that solving "low-level" problems of the kind you mention may not always be best achieved with generic approach - usually a specific task will have to be tackled directly with a specific solution.

For example, someone might try to intercept text output going to the screen by substituting (intercepting) the BIOS interupt and instaling their own ISR, but this will NOT work if output is created by writing directly into video memory (such as with the PRINT statement in PB/DOS). Therefore, an ISR may only achieve a partial solution.

Software is not always the best tool for the job either. For example, intercepting serial comms data is often better performed by external hardware sniffing the serial line, or you might use another PC in "series" with the serial connection, passing data back and forth while simultaneously logging it.

So in conclusion, if Jose R. would like to provide more specific information on what he wants to achieve, maybe we can make specific suggestions, rather than touting generic aproaches -- it could be that a TSR might not be the best possible solution for his problem.

------------------
Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>