Shelling a document and waiting for it to be closed befor proceeding

Hello turloughm,

you could look at this article which puts out a shell and wait for it to return
http://www.mvps.org/access/api/api0004.htm

hope this helps a bit
bruintje

Hi
Thanks for your comment but my code above works for shelling the doc.
StartNewDoc function works fine. But how do i know when the shelled documents application is closed?

T

you cant use the Shell only if you really want to use ShellExecute though i recommend the code in my first comment
http://www.planet-source-code.com/vb/scripts/ShowCode.asp?txtCodeId=1102&lngWId=-1

@Wim that uses the same API calls as this http://www.mvps.org/access/api/api0004.htm

If you have interface displayed . such as a form, you want to pound some messages to your application so it can respond to other events while waiting for event to be signaled. here my example/



'--------------- Module1.bas ------------------

Option Explicit

Private Const SEE_MASK_NOCLOSEPROCESS = &H40
Private Const SEE_MASK_INVOKEIDLIST = &HC
Private Const SEE_MASK_FLAG_NO_UI = &H400

Private Const WAIT_OBJECT_0& = 0
Private Const INFINITE = &HFFFF

Private Const QS_HOTKEY& = &H80
Private Const QS_KEY& = &H1
Private Const QS_MOUSEBUTTON& = &H4
Private Const QS_MOUSEMOVE& = &H2
Private Const QS_PAINT& = &H20
Private Const QS_POSTMESSAGE& = &H8
Private Const QS_SENDMESSAGE& = &H40
Private Const QS_TIMER& = &H10
Private Const QS_MOUSE& = (QS_MOUSEMOVE _
                            Or QS_MOUSEBUTTON)
Private Const QS_INPUT& = (QS_MOUSE _
                            Or QS_KEY)
Private Const QS_ALLEVENTS& = (QS_INPUT _
                            Or QS_POSTMESSAGE _
                            Or QS_TIMER _
                            Or QS_PAINT _
                            Or QS_HOTKEY)

Private Const QS_ALLINPUT& = (QS_SENDMESSAGE _
                            Or QS_PAINT _
                            Or QS_TIMER _
                            Or QS_POSTMESSAGE _
                            Or QS_MOUSEBUTTON _
                            Or QS_MOUSEMOVE _
                            Or QS_HOTKEY _
                            Or QS_KEY)

Private Const SW_NORMAL = 1

Private Type SHELLEXECUTEINFO
        cbSize As Long
        fMask As Long
        hwnd As Long
        lpVerb As String
        lpFile As String
        lpParameters As String
        lpDirectory As String
        nShow As Long
        hInstApp As Long
        lpIDList As Long
        lpClass As String
        hkeyClass As Long
        dwHotKey As Long
        hIcon As Long
        hProcess As Long
End Type

Private Declare Function MsgWaitForMultipleObjects Lib "user32" ( _
    ByVal nCount As Long, _
    pHandles As Long, _
    ByVal fWaitAll As Long, _
    ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long, _
    ByVal dwWakeMask As Long) As Long
   
Private Declare Function ShellExecuteEx Lib "shell32.dll" (SEI As SHELLEXECUTEINFO) As Long
Private Declare Function CloseHandle Lib "kernel32" (ByVal hObject As Long) As Long

Public Sub ShellWait(ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal ProgramPath As String)

Dim SEI As SHELLEXECUTEINFO
Dim lBusy As Long

With SEI
    .cbSize = Len(SEI)
    .fMask = SEE_MASK_NOCLOSEPROCESS
    .lpFile = ProgramPath
    .lpVerb = "open"
    .nShow = SW_NORMAL
    .lpDirectory = Left(ProgramPath, (InStrRev(ProgramPath, "\")) - 1)
    .hwnd = hwnd
End With

ShellExecuteEx SEI

Do
    lBusy = MsgWaitForMultipleObjects(1, SEI.hProcess, False, INFINITE, QS_ALLINPUT&)
        DoEvents
Loop Until lBusy = WAIT_OBJECT_0&

CloseHandle SEI.hProcess
End Sub


'----------------- Form1 ------------------

Private Sub Command1_Click()

ShellWait Me.hwnd, "C:\windows\system32\calc.exe"
    MsgBox "Application closed"
   
End Sub

De_Wim99
Your code works well - One thing though , I know the file name so need to identify the program which is hooked to the files extension - how do i identify the program to shell ?

filename = C:\a.txt
Progam hooked = %SystemRoot%\system32\notepad.exe

cmdline$ =  "%SystemRoot%\system32\notepad.exe C:\a.txt"
ExecCmd(cmdline$)

shellexecute can open the file directly for my example

I only use this to run bat-files ...

I don't know why, but notepad doesn't work ?!

But with wordpad it works:

ExecCmd Environ("SYSTEMROOT") & "\system32\write.exe C:\a.txt"    '%systemroot% doesn't work

Wim

sorry - I should have explained my question better
How do I know what program is used to open  C:\a.txt

you can use a test before opening:

select case lcase(right(yourfilename,3))
    case "txt"
         varApplication = "Environ("SYSTEMROOT") & "\system32\write.exe"
   case "doc"
         varApplication = "your path to word"
   case "xls"
         varApplication = "your path to excel"
   case ....                'all the files you want to open
   case else
        msgbox "Unknow Application"
end select

ExecCmd varApplication & " " & yourfilename

Wim

But If I dont know the path of the application then I must get it from the registery!
How this done on the fly?

I will look in to it, but i's maybe better to open a new question for this.

Wim