Testing if External Program is open

[MoGrace]

How do you test for the window title of an external program to tell if it is running and if not open it? I see lots of ways to open it but not how to check whether it already is.

[aschone]

Re: Testing if External Program is open

You could test if the application process was running.

http://support.alphasoftware.com/alp...LIST%28%29.htm

[MoGrace]

Re: Testing if External Program is open

Thanks Andrew. I saw SYS_ID_ENUM does this too but wasn't sure how to use it. I suppose looking for a substr in the list maybe?

[aschone]

Re: Testing if External Program is open

You can test using the is_one_of() function.

http://support.alphasoftware.com/alp...E_OF%28%29.htm

[MoGrace]

Re: Testing if External Program is open

oooh you're fast! I don't use the list functions very often and had forgotten about this one - thanks again.

[MoGrace]

Re: Testing if External Program is open

Revisiting this thread, I tried is_one_of() and couldn't get it to work. Seems to be a problem with string length. But I found a script in the help and revised it to make a UDF:

FUNCTION prog_win AS N (win_name AS C )
	dim list as C
	dim recs as n
	dim opens as n = 0
	list = upper(sys_id_enum())
	recs = occurs(crlf(),list)+1
	dim progs[recs] as c
	progs.initialize(list)
	for i = 1 to recs
		if alltrim(progs[i]) = upper(win_name)
			opens = opens+1
		end if
	next
	if opens >= 1 then
	    sys_focus_put(win_name)
	end if
	prog_win = opens		
END FUNCTION

Now in a script I can test if the window is open and if not load it:

'Open SKK QB program
if file.exists("C:\QBPro12\QBW32Pro.exe") then
	n = prog_win("S. K. Knits, Inc.  - QuickBooks Pro 2012")
	if n < 1 then
		sys_shell("C:\QBPro12\QBW32Pro.exe",1)
	end if
else
	ui_msg_box("Error Opening Program","File 'C:\QBPro12\QBW32Pro.exe' does not exist.",ui_stop_symbol)
end if