Obtaining Group/Item Info from ProgMan Using DDEML

The information in this article applies to:

• Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) versions 3.0 and 3.1

SUMMARY

Dynamic-data exchange (DDE) can be used to obtain group and/or item information from Program Manager. Many applications, especially setup applications, need this information before items or groups are added/deleted from Program Manager. Information such as group names, group filenames, the number of items in a group, an item's working directory, title, xpos, ypos, and so forth, can be obtained very easily from Program Manager via DDE. This article discusses how to obtain this type of information from Program Manager using DDEML.

MORE INFORMATION

Program Manager is a DDEML server that provides DDE client applications with valuable information regarding group windows and items inside the group windows.

DDEML client applications have to connect to Program Manager with PROGMAN/PROGMAN as SERVICE/TOPIC names. (Program Manager also supports SHELL/APPPROPERTIES service/topic names.) Once connected, the client application needs to REQUEST group/item information from Program Manager by issuing a request transaction.

Group Information

To obtain names of all the groups currently in Program Manager, the client has to issue a request transaction with the item name set to "GROUPS". The request has to be made in CF_TEXT format.

The return value from this transaction is a data handle that contains the names of all the groups in Program Manager. Each group name is separated by a carriage return (\r\n). Below is sample code that requests names of all the groups from Program Manager:

        ghszItem = DdeCreateStringHandle(idInst,"GROUPS",
 CP_WINANSI);
        hProgData = DdeClientTransaction(NULL,
// pointer to data to pass
                                                  // to server
                        0,            // length of data
                        ghszConv,     // handle to conversation
                        ghszItem,     // handle to item-name
                                                  // string
                        CF_TEXT,      // clipboard format
                        XTYP_REQUEST, // transaction type
                        5000,         // transaction timeout
                        NULL);       // pointer to result

     retVal =  DdeGetData(hProgData, (void FAR*)szBuffer,
                             sizeof(szBuffer),  0) ;
        MessageBox(NULL, szBuffer, "TEST", MB_OK) ;

Item Information

To obtain information regarding all the items in a group, the client application has to issue a request transaction to Program Manager, this time with the item name set to the name of the group. For example, if the client application needs to find out if an item exists in Program Manager group "Main", or if it needs to find out all the items that are in group Main, then the call to DdeCreateStringHandle() above must be changed to

   ghszItem = DdeCreateStringHandle(idInst,"MAIN", CP_WINANSI);

The return value from this transaction is a data handle that contains names of all the items in the group Main. A typical example of the data inside resembles the following:

   "MAIN",C:\WINDOWS\MAIN.GRP,5,3
   "MS-DOS","DOSPRMPT.PIF",,PROGMAN.EXE,166,4,9,0,0
   "Mail","MSMAIL.EXE",,C:\WINDOWS\MSMAIL.EXE,258,2,0,0,0
   "Write","WRITE.EXE",,C:\WINDOWS\WRITE.EXE,384,48,0,0,0
   "File","WINFILE.EXE",,C:\WINDOWS\WINFILE.EXE,6,2,0,0,0
   "Brief ","B.PIF",,PROGMAN.EXE,93,49,2,0,0

NOTE: The last value on line 1 is not documented in the Windows Software Development Kit (SDK); it can be any value between 1 and 8. This is the same value that is passed as the second param to the ShowGroup() command. This value indicates the state of the group window, whether minimized, active, and so forth.

In this particular case, the group window Main is currently the active group and is maximized.

For more information on this value, please refer to the ShowGroup() command documentation in Section 17.2.2 of the Windows 3.1 SDK "Programmer's Reference, Volume 1: Overview."

Each subsequent line contains information about an item in the group, including the command line (in quotation marks), the default directory, the icon path, the position in the group, the icon index, the shortcut key (in numeric form), and the minimize flag.

This set of information for each item corresponds to the parameters passed to the AddItem() function when each item was added to the group. For more information on each of these parameters, refer to the AddItem() command documentation on Section 17.2.5 of the Windows 3.1 SDK, "Programmer's Reference, Volume 1: Overview."