Digital Workshop

Hi

Having discovered the potential uses of DLL's, I wonder where pre-compiled DLL's, that are redistributable in pubs, may be available for purchase. Writing DLL's looks to be way beyond my ability. But purchasing redistributable ones that can enhance pubs may be a possibility.

Do these exist? Is there a resource (s) to locate these? Would they be accompanied by instructions needed to load and call their functions? A Google search didn't produce good results. Any leads would be appreciated.

Kind Regards,

Hi Stephen

Writing from the point of view of a person who knows less about DLLs than you do, you might find this interesting.

I did a Google search for "purchase dll" and had 1.8 million hits. Obviously not all of these hits will be relevant, but I saw enough to hope that there might be somethng of interest available.

HTH

Hi Ray

Thanks for your reply. Yes, I also got a multitude of hits on Google for a variety of searched terms relating to DLLs. Unfortunately, I couldn't locate but a few DLL's for purchase and use by developers, and these were fairly arcane functions. I am hoping someone can suggest a list or repository for a wide variety of DLLs available for purchase and redistribution. For the entrepreneurally-minded programmer, here's an opportunity to create several for use in Opus.

Kind Regards,

don't know if there's anything useful but google on opensource dlls as well...
cheers

Hi Mac

Thanks for the lead. Definitely worth a look: there are more hits.

Having just learned how potentially valuable dll's can be, in extending Opus functionality, I need to be better understand what they are, how they work, etc. In my online searching, for example, I searched "convert exe to dll" and came up with the following:

http://www.xuebrothers.net/sh/sh.htm

Interesting, but as a novice, I can't figure out if this utility can help author dll's for example, from JS, that can be plugged in to Opus, or not. They refer to ActiveX dll's, and I'm just not up to speed enough to know if these are the same as the callable dll's that Opus can use.

Ideally, a developer site/forum with listings of/links to open source and commercially-sold, redistributable dll's, with a brief description of each's overall functionality, would be great.

I suspect that other than the MS developer programs (VB), there are no easy to program/use (wizards and templates, etc.) authoring tools to create one's own dll's. I have a 2003 (currently uninstalled since large overhead) version of standard VisualStudio.net, which may be able to create dll's, but was always beyond my skill/ability.

I'll keep trying to learn more and welcome any ideas, leads, information.

Kind Regards,

Not strictly true. Visual C# will create a dll with relative ease. The problem lies with the fact that c# is a managed lanagued and DLLs created with it are not compatible with Opus - which needs unmanaged DLLs - created in a language such as C++ / C.

These require a header file that tells other programmes what function are available for use. If you open a DLL with the DLL Exporter program that somebody posted a link to, you will see available functions in an unmanaged DLL. The problem is knowing what to do with these functions.

The Scroggle lite version that I recently posted contains an RSA DLL that calucates an MD5 hash. Because the source code was supplied, I was able to work out how to use the avialable functions.

I'm rather new to the DLL game (in writing terms) but the level of understanding required to produce your own, borders on the advanced rather than beginner or intermidiate. I have stumbled across various ideas and tools in trying to get my own DLLs to work, but to little avail. They include managed to unamanged convertors (don't work) and the idea that an unmanaged program can be written to accept managed DLLS - hence Opus would work with DLLs written in C#. Whether this is true or if practial would be for the Opus team to comment, but if it gave amature programmers the ability to write their own, then I think it would be worth including simply for the XP.

Just my 5 cents worth.

Mack,

Thanks, Mack, for your informative reply. It confirms for me that I won't be developing any dll's any time soon. It adds to my belief that the best solution, if available, is to look for already written dll's that are for sale, that can be called via their functions for Opus and redistributable (including for commercial pubs). Perhaps, this is "pie in the sky," to locate these.

However, colleagues on the Forum may be aware of some of these and willing to post them, thereby creating (hopefully) a growing repository of this valuable information.

Kind Regards,