GEOS SDK TechDocs
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5 The Error-Checking Version
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6.1 IACP Overview
Applications do not usually need to communicate with each other. Most applications will interact only with the kernel and with libraries; such applications don't even notice if any other applications are running. However, a few applications will need to communicate with other applications.
For example, many desktop-managers provide a "print file" command; the user selects a file's icon, then chooses this command to print out the appropriate file. The desktop manager will have no way of knowing how to print the file; after all, the file could have been created by an application which hadn't even been written when the desktop manager was installed. The desktop manager therefore causes the appropriate application to be started. It then instructs the application to print the file.
Because GEOS is an object-oriented system, there is a natural model for inter-application communication. When one application needs to contact another, it can simply send a message; thus, sending information or instructions to another application is not, in principle, different from sending it from one object to another within an application.
The GEOS Inter-Application Communications Protocol (IACP) specifies how to open communications with another application, and how to send messages back and forth.
GEOS SDK TechDocs
|
|
| 5 The Error-Checking Version
| 6.1 IACP Overview