Last Updated 2002-11-22-14:25 -0800 (pst)
From: ODMA TECH LIST [ODMATECH@FTPLIST.AIIM.ORG] on behalf of Nancy
Bobb [Nancy.Bobb@IGATE.FHWA.DOT.GOV]
Sent: Friday, 08 December 2000 12:10
To: ODMATECH@FTPLIST.AIIM.ORG
Subject: Re: Visual Basic/ODMA question
Follow Up Flag: Follow up
Flag Status: Completed
Mr. Hamilton:
Thank you so much for all the information! It will take me a while to digest.
I see I left quite a bit of info out of my original request. Yes, we do have ODMA documents. I had generated an ODMA statement by recording a Word macro, then tried to apply it but it wouldn't work. Wouldn't you know, I tried it again just now and it works! But there might be a better way to do it, so I look forward to getting the API call info you mentioned. Just for laughs, I've pasted my code below. Thanks again for your help.
Private Sub Command1_Click()
Dim x As Object
Set x = CreateObject("Word.Application")
x.Visible = True
x.Documents.Open FileName:= _
"::ODMA\GRPWISE\FH09CADO.FH09CAPO.FH09CA_SUBJCA_LIBRARY:34035.1"
End Sub
Nancy E. Bobb
Division Bridge Engineer
California Division
916-498-5033
email: Nancy.Bobb@fhwa.dot.gov
>>> "Dennis E. Hamilton" <infonuovo@email.com> 12/08/00
11:42AM >>>
%To: Nancy E. Bobb
%Cc: ODMA Tech
%From: Dennis E. Hamilton
I think there are three cases to look at
1.
Driving the DMS to Open a Document on the Desktop
2.
Driving Word to Open a DMS Document on the Desktop
3.
Driving ODMA to locate documents to launch
I am assuming that you want to control the launching of Word with a document selected from a DMS so that it can be viewed or even manipulated (e.g., as part of a workflow). And you want to do this from software, rather than by directly requesting it from GroupWise 5 or from MS Word 2000.
I am going to respond based on the assumption that you have an ODMA Document ID for the document. If you need ways to get a document identification to use, there are ways to address that also.
There are doubtless non-ODMA approaches, and experts on this list can point you to resources for that.
Here are the alternatives that I see.
1. DRIVING THE DMS TO OPEN A DOCUMENT ON
THE DESKTOP
There may be an API that GroupWise 5 makes available for direct use of
customer-developed applications. You will need to research the GroupWise
documentation and consult their technical support for any ActiveX components or
other interfaces that are made available directly by GroupWise 5 and that are
intended for use from Visual Basic applications.
We are happy to provide links to any such information that people let us know about. We have no such information at this time.
2. DRIVING WORD TO OPEN A DMS DOCUMENT ON THE DESKTOP
This is easy with an ODMA-compliant DMS. Microsoft Word is an ODMA-aware application and it will use ODMA to access documents in a DMS when given an ODMA Document ID in place of a file name.
So all you need to do to fire up word with an ODMA document is launch Word with the command form
winword <odma-id>
For example, I just used the Start | Run ... parameters
winword ::ODMA\ODMASAMP\13-00-07-17
and Microsoft Word 2000 started and automatically retrieved the specified document of mine from the ODMA 2.0 Sample repository.
When I edited and saved the document, MS Word used the specified ODMA DMS to save the altered document back into the repository.
Initiating the equivalent of that Start | Run ... should be fairly straightforward using Visual Basic.
3. DRIVING ODMA TO LOCATE DOCUMENTS TO LAUNCH
If you don't have an ODMA Document ID, it is possible to directly use ODMA, via its API, to exercise one or more DMS integrations and then deliver a derived ODMA Document ID to your application. Then you can apply step (2). Or you can use the ODMActivate operation of ODMA, requesting an ODM_OPENDOC or ODM_VIEWDOC operation. This has the DMS open an identified document using the correct application for the format of the document.
This case involves using the ODMA API. This API is not very directly suited to direct use by Visual Basic applications, though people have done so.
There is on-going interest in using ODMA from Visual Basic and other
higher-level tools. The information that we have collected about this, as
well as some effort at creating an ActiveX component usable from VB, is being
consolidated on the ODMA site over the next 10 days. I will add you to the
announcement list when this material is available. It will be part of
creating responses to three FAQ: Q000012, Q000100, and Q001103 in the job jar at
http://www.infonuovo.com/odma/faq/Q00-next.htm
Is this information along the lines you are interested in? For more information
and available downloads, please visit
http://www.infonuovo.com/odma/
and let us know any further questions that you have.
Thank you,
-- Dennis
AIIM DMware Technical Coordinator
AIIM DMware http://www.infonuovo.com/dmware
ODMA Support http://www.infonuovo.com/odma
------------------
Dennis E.
Hamilton tel.
+1-425-793-0283
mailto:orcmid@email.com
fax. +1-425-430-8189
-----Original Message-----
From: ODMA TECH LIST [mailto:ODMATECH@FTPLIST.AIIM.ORG]On Behalf Of Nancy Bobb
Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2000 13:25
To: ODMATECH@FTPLIST.AIIM.ORG
Subject: Visual Basic/ODMA question
We have Groupwise 5 and MS Word 2000 in our office. We are trying to figure out how to open a document in Word from our DMS using an external Visual Basic application. Do you know where I can find help on this? It is a pretty specialized area and there isn't a lot of info out there.
Thanks.
Nancy E. Bobb
Division Bridge Engineer
California Division
916-498-5033
email: Nancy.Bobb@fhwa.dot.gov
created 2002-05-07-10:08 -0700 (pdt) by
orcmid
$$Author: Orcmid $
$$Date: 07-07-28 11:15 $
$$Revision: 5 $