Thanks Norman and Giovanni, The Skype4COM.dll is the wrapper I believe (in fact I can load it fine in RB as an active X control once I register it on my system). I did not want to depend on an installer because I am worried that either Skype or the ActiveX control might be updated faster than I can update my application (so I wanted to keep the control in my own installation package). I also wanted to avoid headaches if maybe the user later deactivated Skype or a different user on the same machine uses the software but does not have a Skype account. My hopes were that learning more about soft declares would solve the day. Apparently not.
If I look at the source of the .dll there are lots and lots of iDispatch's so I do not think that this would be an issue. I hate depending on external software like this but it makes it so easy to send SMS's. My sample project is at http://software.sirkevi. com/download.php?view.11 but there are already some issues with starting the .exe when Skype is not running. I guess I am just picking the collective brain to decide what I should be reading up on :). Sincerely, Shawn > Thanks Norman. I guess what is throwing me off target is that the > activex control is itself a .dll (Skype4COM.dll, Skype for COM API). > Seeing that I thought I could use soft declares to avoid any issues > with timeouts or or missing libraries/ dependencies. If I > understand you correctly, soft declares would be of no use with it > then since it is an ActiveX DLL and not some other kind of DLL? ActiveX controls are not "just" dynamically loadable code which is what I meant. You could probably just use the ActiveX Control in RB, although I'll have to admit that I'm not sure how. Soft declares don't get rid of dependencies although using them and the other RB functions designed to access libraries at run time can help you avoid crashes from a dependent library not being present. That could also be solved with an installer though. Giovanni... ActiveX are a portion of COM objects. RB does not support COM objects, RB supports ActiveX that expose using iDispatch. This is not COM. If your trying to create an interface, and you have knowledge of VB or C++, you could do a ActiveX or DLL library in VB, C++ and have it act as a sort of wrapper. Besides that, there is not much you can do. Just because it works on another language, does not guarantee that it will work in RB. As a matter of fact, Skype COM API will not work in RB without a wrapper. Because its COM. _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe or switch delivery mode: <http://www.realsoftware.com/support/listmanager/> Search the archives: <http://support.realsoftware.com/listarchives/lists.html>
