Subject: From: Date:

Controlling external apps from ECS Ingo Dean (At Home) Sat, 17 Oct 1998 13:29:37 -0400

---

Hi all,

I've been trying to integrate my systems together and have now come to the
point where I want to control other applications on my HA PC from ECS.

I'm starting with WinAMP, the MP3 music player.  I figured, just create a
Keyboard-Event type, and send the keystrokes I want.  Easy...

Question 1:  Do I really have to create an item for every different
keystroke I want to send to each different app?  This design leads to
exponential item growth.  Is there another version of this item, that just
defines the application to receive the event, where I can then say "Do
WinAmp Set b" to send it the "b" keystroke?  That would keep me from having
an extra 100-odd items to track for all the different commands I will want
to send to each app.

Question 2:  Can I send lower-case keys?  ECS translates them all to
upper-case in the item-creation screen.

Question 3:  How do I control programs that change their window titles?
WinAmp, for instance, will display the songname it's playing: "4. Where the
River Flows - Winamp", which makes the window title different for every
track...  In this case, it leaves the program name at the end, not at the
beginning, which ECS should have been able to find.

Does anyone know how to keep Winamp from doing this?

-OR-

Maybe allow ECS to use the window class that wnddmp shows:

10/17/98 13:02:25:	Window=4. Where the River Flows - Winamp:
10/17/98 13:02:25:		class=Winamp v1.x
10/17/98 13:02:25:		hwnd=8f4 flags=0 showCmd=SHOWNORMAL
10/17/98 13:02:25:		MinPos=-1/-1 MaxPos=-1/-1
10/17/98 13:02:25:		NormPos=0/749 116/1024 Rect=0/749 116/1024

Thanks,

--ingo

---