Accessing Formativ from VB

[Anonymous]

Is it possible to access the Formativ methods/applets from Visual Basic? I have tried adding the Advansys Formativ library to the references but I get errors when attempting the NewMail, or other commands in the Groupwise object.

We are currently trialing Formativ and I am trying to determine if I can use it to create an interactive email. By that I mean, have my VB app pop up the New Mail standard dialog and have my code wait until the user sends. Once sent, I then need to act on the email content to update my VB app.

Formativ seems to offer these sorts of features in itself but I want to create a ‘link’ to our existing software.

Hope you can help.

Topic

[Support 1a]

Dear RPP,

Thank you for your question above. Unfortumately you cannot use Formativ in the way you describe (i.e. add the Formativ type library to the references in a VB project and attempt to call the methods in the library). Formativ objects may only be consumed by itself, not by external development environments.

Formativ can consume COM automation objects. For example, you could create a COM object in VB and register it, then have Formativ create instances of the server and call methods on it. However, it doesn’t work the other way around.

If you have an extensive existing code-base that you wish to integrate with GroupWise, you may need to use the GroupWise API’s directly from your VB application.

I hope this helps.

Advansys Support

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your reply, it’s good to know that I would be wasting my time to pursue connecting to Formativ. Creating COM objects may suit my needs for some of the requirement. The extra features Formativ brings to Groupwise means we will definitely be utilising it even if the integration isn’t as clean as I might have hoped for.

My attempts to get the Groupwise API to allow interaction have failed so far – I can read/create emails or whatever but not display the various dialogs to allow user interaction. Do you have any suggestions for examples/support in this regard. Sorry, I realise this has nothing to do with your company or product but I figure you guys must know Groupwise backwards.

Thanks

Simon

[Support 1a]

Simon,

Thanks for the update. In terms of controlling the GroupWise client (i.e. to display the native GroupWise dialogs), you would generally use the GroupWise Token API. Have a look at:

http://developer.novell.com/ndk/doc/gwtoken/index.html?gwtokens/data/hj8ej8g5.html

You are probably already aware of this, but the best (and probably only) place to obtain GroupWise API support is via the moderated Usenet Forums hosted by Novell. You’ll find links to those from http://developer.novell.com.

I hope this helps.

Regards,

Advansys Support

[Author]

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