Plucker Desktop Windows conduit

[Bill Nalen]

Okay for a while now I've been fiddling with making a conduit for the Plucker Desktop.  First I created my own C++ plucker builder (ported from the Python), but that proved too hard to maintain with changes to the Python code.  Then I was going to try using the Java stuff, but that didn't pan out well either.  So I started fiddling with the C++ stuff again today and I made a couple of discoveries.  First I realized that I could call a regular program while doing a hotsync (the process needs to be in its own thread).  Then I realized that if that process creates a pdb file and "installs" it, it will get sync'd without any work by me.  Then I stumbled across the command line arguments for plucker_desktop.

So, putting these all together, I made a conduit in about an hour that runs the plucker-desktop.exe --update-due process during sync to have all the waiting channels plucked and installed.  Plucker_desktop even pops up a nice progress dialog.  Seems to work great on the small channels I tried.

I have to say that Robert has done an excellent job here.

I'll build an installer in the next day or so and post a download for it.

I do have a couple of items though:
        If no channels are due, a message box pops up telling the user that there were no channels due.  The docs say it should just silently end.  I would like this behaviour instead of waiting for the ok button to get pressed.  (I do have the auto close always option selected and it works fine when an update is done).

        Will plucker_desktop.exe always be found at plucker_install_dir/plucker_desktop/plucker-desktop.exe?  If so, I believe I can find it based on the registry key for the Plucker path.

        Are there any objections to creating a registry key The Plucker Team/PluckerCond/Command to hold the executable command to run?  This way an advanced user could edit the registry to run a program other than plucker-desktop during the sync.

        Does it matter if the hotsync is being run for one user and the channel is scheduled to be installed for another?  I think the update-due command option will update all channels for all users.  I don't think this will be a big problem so I'm prone to ignoring the issue for now.

Thanks
Bill