How to shell to another app and have it appear in a delphi form

Question

In Delphi I\'ve used ShellExecute for years to launch (and optionally wait for) other applications. Now though, I need to have one of these applications appear in one of my

Answer 1

That will be a tricky one, if it's even possible.

I've seen approaches that will work for text-based applications - they generally capture the standard output of the process as it happens and put it into a text control.

But what you're talking about is a fully fledged graphical application (Notepad, despite working on text, display pixels, not character codes).

So, unless Notepad provides an interface where you can:

• request arbitrary characters in the buffer; and
• send arbitrary keystrokes to the program, I'd say you're flat out of luck.

Definitely a kludge, but one option is to continuously monitor the Notepad windows and ensure it's always superimposed over your forms client area. That's pretty horrible since you have to stop it moving, resizing, minimizing and so on, and maintain its z-order to be just above your applications. I wouldn't wish those requirements on my worst enemy.

Have you thought of using an editor control built specifically for Delphi (or an ActiveX editor that you could embed)? That might be a better approach.