windows DDE, Dynamic Data Exchange

Programming Questions

jmat45

windows DDE, Dynamic Data Exchange

in Programming Questions • 1 year ago

I just started looking at "Processing" for development of a potential project. I work with vision measuring intruments that has software running on a Windows PC. There is a DLL library that I use with EXCEL VBA to add additional user interface capability. The machines software also has DDE available to transfer data to EXCEL. I would like to use the DLL and the DDE techniques with Processing and eliminate the EXCEL useage. I think I can work out the DLL interfacing but does Processing work with DDE (Windows Dynamic Data Exchange)? I searched the forum for DDE and Dynamic Data Exchange and to my surprise got no hits.

Replies(3)

noncom

Re: windows DDE, Dynamic Data Exchange

1 year ago

From your question it is not very clear what you want to do. As far as I understand, you want a more sophisticated visual data representation than Excel gives you, but the data is received from some special kind of hardware that expresses it in DDE paradigm?

It is quite doubtful that you will find any related info here. Processing does not specialize in data exchange, it is aimed more at artistic creations than to data piping. However, I think that there may be libraries for working with DDE. Especially, if you remember, Processing itself IS a Java library (with a dedicated IDE) and as a language, based upon Java. Any Java libraries can be used with Processing. So you should look for Java libs that work with DDE. This is very good since Java has a very wide availability of libraries. I advice using Eclipse (or any of the other major IDEs) and plugging Processing as a library if you want to have its ability to express thoughts visually.

PhiLho

Re: windows DDE, Dynamic Data Exchange

1 year ago

" I searched the forum for DDE and Dynamic Data Exchange and to my surprise got no hits."
Well, not so much surprising... DDE is a quite outdated technology, and it is specific to Windows, while Java aims to be system agnostic. Perhaps you can find a Java library allowing to use DDE (probably using JNI to call Windows API), but I don't guarantee that.

jmat45

Re: windows DDE, Dynamic Data Exchange

1 year ago

Thanks for your replies to my question about DDE interfacing. I eventually found some JAVA libraries that provide the support I need. I was hoping to avoid the complexities of JAVA, however my wife teaches JAVA at a local college and she help me get over the learning curve.

I don't know yet if Processing will meet my needs or expectations for this current project, but it is certainly an interesting and entertaining environment to use to express ideas and data. I am sure I will use for some future projects.

Top Reply