jdt2oo7
24th July 2010 00:57 UTC

Command or plugin to quit application gracefully?
Hello all,

I've been using the Processes::KillProcess to kill an application before update or before uninstallation, but we are looking for something that give the application time to gracefully shutdown. Any suggestion?

Many thanks!

Animaether
24th July 2010 05:26 UTC

well, you could send WM_CLOSE to the application:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...17(VS.85).aspx

or you can try the relatively recent nsisDDE plugin:
http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=320701

Wizou
24th July 2010 16:30 UTC

Note: nsisDDE has been around for a long time now (2005) but there was no forum thread for it ;)
Version 1.1 was recently released and supports Unicode.

Animaether
25th July 2010 02:02 UTC

Originally posted by Wizou
Note: nsisDDE has been around for a long time now (2005) but there was no forum thread for it ;)

jdt2oo7
27th July 2010 00:46 UTC

Thanks for your responeses, Animaether and Wizou!

I tried as follow but it doesn't seem to close the program:

nsisDDE::Execute "notepad" "[FileQuit()]"
Pop $0
MessageBox MB_OK "Found $0 responding DDE server(s)"

The message value for $0 is 0.

I also try with nsisDDEW. What I do wrong here?

Thanks!

Animaether
27th July 2010 01:07 UTC

from the first google hit for 'notepad dde'..
"DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange) is one Microsoft way of communicating between applications that support that (e.g. Word does, but Wordpad/Notepad don't). Messages are strings that express commands"
..it seems notepad doesn't take DDE commands.

So if notepad is your target, WM_CLOSE may be what you're actually looking for. What are you trying to accomplish, exactly?

jdt2oo7
27th July 2010 01:12 UTC

Thanks Animaether!

I am just trying to quit my application gracefully instead of using Processes::KillProcess to kill my application.

For example, my app is in the process of syncing a file, I would like to quit after the sync process is completed instead of kill the app right away.

Animaether
27th July 2010 01:18 UTC

Well, you'd have to look up the exact specs of that application's DDE server - if any (e.g. just like notepad, it might not have any) - to use the DDE method.
The alternative is the WM_CLOSE message, which the application should handle gracefully. However, the exact manner in which it handles this is less fine-grained than DDE might allow.

e.g. as per that same article, Microsoft Office Word can be told to close and - if a modified file is open - either save, don't save, or prompt the user.
with WM_CLOSE, it always prompts the user (similar to pressing the X button on the window)

Wizou
27th July 2010 09:57 UTC

@jdt2oo7 : If you have the source code of your application and it is written in MFC, it is quite easy to add DDE support.