launching on Wintel/inter-process communication

[Chipp Walters]

Richard,
see below for my comments,
Chipp

> Launching an app with a document on Windows is a snap -- the
> first time you
> do it.  If you run a launch command to launch a given app a
> second time, as
> documented you will get an error.

Don't know if you can use this information, but...

I am able to launch multiple instances of the same REV program by clicking
on a .rev file from a browser (see www.buttongadget.com)

>
> So how do we open a second document in the currently-running application
> instance?
>
> One strategy discussed here earlier is to have the app write a temp file,
> which would be seem by a second instance which could simply let the user
> know that the app is already running.  But the user may
> legitimately wonder:
> "So what?"  It is a reasonable expectation that double-clicking a document
> will launch the appropriate app and display the document.

Launching a second instance of the running app and loading the
'double-clicked' document should work. In fact, I'm sure of it. ButtonGadget
does this. If you need registry setting code, let me know.
Ken Ray has document association code at:
http://www.sonsothunder.com/index2.htm?/devres/revolution/revolution.htm

but, I'm sure you know all this.


>It seems less
> reasonable, certainly less convenient, to tell them they need to switch to
> the first instance and hunt down the document in an "Open file" menu item.

Can you use DDE? Ken would know more about this...

Perhaps opening a second instance with the document loaded is the correct
way to do this.

I hate when I double-click an .htm file and it loads up in my existing
browser window. I rather it open into it's own window.