Network communication

[peekay]

I wish to write a simple messaging program that each user on a local area network can use to send messages to individual other users on the LAN. The user to which a message is directed will not have the program loaded at the time and the message must load the program (.exe .dll) and show the message. Which process would you recommend for such a program.

Peekay

PK Odendaal
pko@mweb.co.za

 

[KenChristensen]

Hi Peekay,

I dont know if thats possible.
But you can make an app that are minimized to systray send the message to the client and when the user gets the message the app "restores" to a normal size.
You can make the simple "chat" using the Winsock control from Microsoft.

The systray code i can send you.. (cant find it at msdn but its there somewhere and i have it at my comp.
If you succeed then help others

ken Christensen
Christensenken@hotmail.com

http://www.kenchristensen.tk

 

[peekay]

Thanks Ken for the the contribution. I presently have a program that lies in the systray of all the users and the addressed user's timer checks every minute whether there is a new message for him. Upon finding a message the user's form is maximised and the message shown - but this is not a good solution. I was thinking more of a DCOM setup with a server tier checking messages and sending them via DCOM to the user, but I do not have any experience on that.
PK Odendaal
pko@mweb.co.za

 

[Schroeder]

Why not have your existing program listen to a port. It could alert the user immediately when the Winsock's DataArrival event fires.. assuming you're using Winsock controls for this. You could still have your server if that's a requirement. The server could relay the message to the appropriate client.

You'll always need to have some[\i] sort of client program running at least in the background. It could be a tiny program that just listens and launches the real client when a message arrives if it's system load you're worried about.

One of the "How to Use the Winsock Control" articles on the MSDN site has a complete example of how to build a simple peer-to-peer chat program using Winsock controls. At least that article used to be there.

 

[Avacha]

Does same one knows how to Retrieve .JPG from Access 2000 table (Data type - OLE object) and display it in Access 2000 Form.