external Windows program running?

[Alex Tweedly]

Revolution wrote:

>Thanks to all who have made suggestions for solving my problem but I don't
>see a solution yet.
>
>The actual problem is hiding the windows taskbar while a nonrev program is
>running. Rev handles the taskbar hiding quite well with the command "hide
>taskbar" which functions as long as rev is running. As soon as rev shuts
>down (or the standalone shuts down) the taskbar reappears. This means that
>rev must be running while the nonrev app is running in order to keep the
>taskbar hidden. When the nonrev program quits, I need to have rev quit. Both
>rev and the nonrev program are capable of launching apps, which leads to 2
>approaches.
>
>1. Use rev to launch the nonrev app and when the nonrev app completes, shut
>down rev.
>
>2. Use the nonrev app to launch rev at the point where the taskbar needs to
>be hidden and shut rev down beyond that point.
>
>Solution 1.
>And now the complications start. The nonrev app has its own launcher which
>must be used. This launcher shuts down after it has the nonrev app started.
>The OpenProcess command won't work because the process that rev launched
>(the launcher) has shut down. So what I need is a method for rev to check if
>an app is running that it didn't start. Then I could periodically check to
>see if the app is running and when it quits, I could shut down my rev app.
>Further complication: This is all running from a CD on unknown systems which
>may have unknown protection schemes, so the neat trick of writing to a file
>and checking that file isn't going to work because my app may not have
>permission to write to a drive on the user's system.
>In summary: This method requires that rev have some method of checking if an
>app that it didn't start, is still running.
>
>Solution 2.
>I am not sure that this method is an improvement on Solution 1 because now I
>have the nonrev app somewhat more in control and if it was more
>sophisticated, this problem wouldn't exist. This certainly works well, when
>rev is called it hides the taskbar but when the nonrev app finishes I need
>to shut down rev or the users taskbar stays hidden.
>
>  
>
I've only loosely followed the whole thread - so don't know if this will 
work or not ....

Solution 3.  A sandwich made with "rev standalone"s.

a. Rev Standalone A starts running.
b. it starts the other launcher (App B)
c. Rev Standalone A then listens on some TCP/UDP port (say 8765)
meanwhile
d. The launcher runs, and starts up App B.
e. App B runs. When it's almost done, it start up another app (Rev 
Standalone C) and then exits
f. Rev standalone C open a socket to 8765, sends a suitable message to 
it and then exits.
......
g. Rev Standalone A gets a message on the port it's listening on, 
verifies it, and then exits.


-- 
Alex Tweedly       http://www.tweedly.net



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