[3R1C]

Im writting 2 separate applications and one of these applications needs to be able to execute a method in the other. Im not exactly sure which route I should take to accomplish this task. I figure I can either make the the target application applescriptable or I can use distributed objects. Each of these two ideas seem to have limitations (perhaps not. part of the reason for this post)

applescript method.

app "a" sends an applescript event to app "b" this event needs to pass a string variable to app "b". it would look something like this i suppose.

tell application "a";
activate;
doMethod with argument "12345";
end tell;

where app "b" has a method like:

- doMethod:(NSString *)theArg

distributed object method.

Im not really to up to speed on distributed objects. questions i have are, what if the app that i need to talk to isnt running? will it be run for me? do i have to do something to check to see if it is indeed running first and then do the method?

another idea i just had is that i could write directly to the defaults of app "b" and then tell app a to read the defaults back in. is there some way to see from with in app "b" that the defaults have changed and to then have app "b" re-read its defaults? that would be kinda easy to do. With app "a" I write directly to app "b" defaults, not caring whether app "b" is running. But if app "b" IS running and the defaults are changed, app "b" re-reads its defaults thus populating my apps gui with the new info.

does this make any sense? are any of these ideas valid? the third idea up there that bypasses both applescript and distributed objects seems pretty tasty. any ideas y'all?

[Rainy Day]

AppleEvents are designed just for this purpose, and AppleScript is the easiest way to implement AppleEvents, IMO.

PS: You probably don't want the activate command in your example (that brings the application to the front). With AppleScript, if the application isn't active, merely referring to it will generally cause it to launch automatically.

[ambush]

Originally posted by 3R1C:
Im writting 2 separate applications and one of these applications needs to be able to execute a method in the other. Im not exactly sure which route I should take to accomplish this task. I figure I can either make the the target application applescriptable or I can use distributed objects. Each of these two ideas seem to have limitations (perhaps not. part of the reason for this post)

applescript method.

app "a" sends an applescript event to app "b" this event needs to pass a string variable to app "b". it would look something like this i suppose.

tell application "a";
activate;
doMethod with argument "12345";
end tell;

where app "b" has a method like:

- doMethodNSString *)theArg

distributed object method.

Im not really to up to speed on distributed objects. questions i have are, what if the app that i need to talk to isnt running? will it be run for me? do i have to do something to check to see if it is indeed running first and then do the method?

another idea i just had is that i could write directly to the defaults of app "b" and then tell app a to read the defaults back in. is there some way to see from with in app "b" that the defaults have changed and to then have app "b" re-read its defaults? that would be kinda easy to do. With app "a" I write directly to app "b" defaults, not caring whether app "b" is running. But if app "b" IS running and the defaults are changed, app "b" re-reads its defaults thus populating my apps gui with the new info.

does this make any sense? are any of these ideas valid? the third idea up there that bypasses both applescript and distributed objects seems pretty tasty. any ideas y'all?

Well DO seems to be the right choice, IMHO. There are articles on that topic @ cocoadev.com

Otherwise... if the 2nd app is a "tool" (e.g. no interface) well you could use NSTask to launch it with args and stuff....

[Arkham_c]

While Apple Events are probably the simplest answer, you could use an NSDistributedNotification. I don't know that it would be any easier/harder, but if it's a Cocoa app you could decide to go that route.

Other options include a client-server architecture with something like XML-RPC or SOAP.