Starting shell application

Is there a way to make a plugin run an external

application? (just start it, no need to communicate

with it).



If now from within a plugin - maybe with some hack using a script?

Does it make sense?
Starting shell application
Is there anyone in this forum???
Starting shell application
Not many, but people do come by. Now, I'm not a Photoshop plug-in

developer, I develop Acrobat plug-ins. But I find your question

puzzling. Since plug-ins are written in C/C++, what could possibly

stop you from starting a process?



Aandi Inston

Hey!



so nice to see there are others....



I don't know what stops it ... but I tried running a

process (liek notepad) and nothing happened so

I wonder if it is possible at all.



Hope to find out a way to fix it.



Tnx

david_chinask@adobeforums.com wrote:

%26gt; I don't know what stops it ... but I tried running a

%26gt; process (liek notepad) and nothing happened so

%26gt; I wonder if it is possible at all.



How were you trying to run the process? Regardless of platform specific APIs,

you should be able to use system() or something from the exec() family of functions.





-X

--

for photoshop scripting solutions of all sorts

contact: xbytor@gmail.com

Hi xbytor and thanks for the help,



system() did work, I wonder why all the other exec functions

didn't work...



Is there a way to prevent system() from opening the shell (cmd)

window though? sorry if its a common knowledge - didn't get a chance

to use this method before.



Thanks again!

david_chinask@adobeforums.com wrote:

%26gt; system() did work, I wonder why all the other exec functions

%26gt; didn't work...

%26gt;

%26gt; Is there a way to prevent system() from opening the shell (cmd)

%26gt; window though?



Not that I know of. I get the same thing when making the same type of call in

other languages. It's annoying and unavoidable as far as I know. You may want to

look into Windows-specific functions. There may be something in there that does

what you want.



-X



--

for photoshop scripting solutions of all sorts

contact: xbytor@gmail.com

If you are in Windows, use CreateProcess instead. This is fairly

complex, but it does start an asychronous process directly. ''system''

is an untidy option ported half-heartedly from Unix.



Aandi Inston

Thanks Aandi,



CreateProcess did work.

I was afraid using this system() method, and was glad

to hear that CreateProcess is safe.



Bye :)

Aandi_Inston@adobeforums.com wrote:

%26gt; If you are in Windows, use CreateProcess instead. This is fairly

%26gt; complex, but it does start an asychronous process directly. ''system''

%26gt; is an untidy option ported half-heartedly from Unix.



Good to here that there's a better way of doing this. But I'm glad MS did the

right thing with 'system'.



This reminds me of an old geek-myth. Once back in the early days of glibc

someone was implementing a part of the C library where the spec said that

calling a certain function with some unusual parameter would be 'implementation

defined' or some such. So, the developer had the function launch emacs whenever

that happened.



-X

--

for photoshop scripting solutions of all sorts

contact: xbytor@gmail.com