Adding an External Application
Windows Forms hosted applications inherit from a CCF class to perform their integration, and Web applications are hosted within the CCF browser. External applications, however, are executables that were not written specifically for CCF. External applications have their own processes and are .exe format files. Typically, they were written using Win32 APIs, Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC), or Visual Basic 6.0 or earlier.
The current methods for integrating external applications are:
- Using XML to embed the application in the CCF desktop, or using XML scripting to run the application outside of the CCF desktop. Using either approach does not cover all integration scenarios, but it allows a developer to integrate some simple operations, and it can be extended at a later time.
- Using other scripting methods, such as Jscript or VB script. For this approach, the application must support COM automation.
- Using an application adapter. This is the most powerful method, but it can be the most difficult.
Examples of external applications that have been successfully integrated are:
- Billing applications written using MFC.
- DOS-based applications
- Microsoft Notepad, Microsoft Word, and accessory calculators
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