Do you have any use case in mind to start working on?
I can suggest something I did in the past (it's the idea behind PlantUML Gizmo). With Roassal, we can generate visualizations (PNG?) that go into a Word document. The source (which is a kind of DSL to produce an image, like PlantUML) can be in a playground. The problem is when you insert the image into word, you can't re-do it unless you have the source, which is in some Pharo image or Git repository... it's nicer to be able to keep the source inside your documentation (Word).
So, a use-case would be to automate (with COM) the insertion of the visualization (a morph in the form of a GIF or PNG?) into the currently-open Word document. The Roassal source (DSL, from the playground) would be attached to the image as ALT_TEXT. That way, you could recover the source into Pharo later if/when you want to modify it after it's in your Word document. There would be a complementary function to recover the "selected" image/source from word back into Pharo. This is a rough description I know.
I have made a plugin for Word (VSTO, VB.net) that does this using PlantUML.com and it works quite well. But you could easily imagine Pharo/Roassal as the DSL + image generator (it's a little more complex). Maybe not the most interesting use case, but it's something to test out the COM library.
The source of the method to replace/insert an image in
VB.NET I wrote is here [1] (the context is VSTO, so it's surely different in COM, but it might be useful to someone).
Cris
��
Thanks,
Pablo
On Wed, Sep 25, 2019 at 10:29 PM eftomi <tomaz.turk@ef.uni-lj.si> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I finally got some time to check Pablo's PharoCOM package closely. At first
> I had problems with simple things, like making Word visible with
> properyNamed:put: (it's frustrating when you see the app on the processes
> list but you cannot control it :-)) but then I found the reason - it was a
> tiny detail in Win32VariantBool>>#write:to:, and then - voila!
>
> Here's an example of opening Word for Windows, adding a blank document,
> typing some text and getting this text back to Pharo:
>
> Ole32Lib uniqueInstance initLibrary.
> wrd := COMDispatchInstance createInstanceByName: 'Word.Application'.
> wrd propertyNamed: 'Visible' put: true.
>
> docs := wrd propertyNamed: 'Documents'.
> docs dispatch: 'Add'.
>
> sel := wrd propertyNamed: 'Selection'.
> sel dispatch: 'TypeText' withArguments: {'Hello from Pharo!'}.
>
> sel dispatch: 'WholeStory' .
> Transcript show: (sel propertyNamed: 'Text'); cr.
>
> Another example is with Active Data Objects to get DB access:
>
> conn := COMDispatchInstance createInstanceByName: 'ADODB.Connection' .
> conn dispatch: 'Open' withArguments: { 'DSN=this; Uid=that; Pwd=theOther;' }
> .
> conn propertyNamed: 'State' . --> true!
> rst := (COMDispatchInstance createInstanceByName: 'ADODB.Recordset') .
> rst dispatch: 'Open' withArguments: { 'SomeTableName' . conn . 3 . 1 }.
>
> The last line raises an exception because not all of the data types that
> functions are reporting are implemented yet, as Pablo mentioned in his post.
>
> The package is really nicely prepared. The most impressive is it's
> reflective capability. My "proof of concept" work with DispHelper library
> that I mentioned in another forum topic was successful (I can get to the SQL
> Server :-)), however it's a dead-end regarding the reflection.
>
> I'm very interested in COM implementation since I found Pharo to be very
> useful as a tool, and since I work in "windowed" environment the COM
> interaction is crucial to me. I decided to spent my free evenings working on
> the project finalization. I'm not sure of how long will it take though :-)
> Pablo, I hope that I can count on your help regarding the questions about
> the overall architecture that you set.
>
> Is anybody else interested in this? Maybe we can join our efforts.
>
> Best wishes,
> Tomaz
>
>
>
> --
> Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Users-f1310670.html
>
--
Pablo Tesone.
tesonep@gmail.com
