ShellExec and a bit more (delphi)

Often i've read questions about how to show/open a pdf-file with QuickPDF. Why you want to do this with QuickPDF? Everybody who's working with pdf-files have installed a pdf-reader... so why not use it? For this you can use ShellExecute or (better) ShellExec ('cause it supports long file names and offers you more features).

If you don't want to work with the real name "acrord32" you can use my second example as well. All in Delphi but i think other languages offers the same.

Some more special code is "Keybd_Event...". You know pressing the shift-key while opening a pdf-file supress the loading of many dlls (from the acrobat reader) which you often don't need. So in my code first i simulate a pressed shift key and after ShellExec i simulate a released shift key.

Best regards,
Ingo

. . .
   uses ShellAPI
. . .
function ShellExec( op, fn, par, dir: PChar;
show: Word; wait: Boolean): LongInt;
var
ih: Word;
OK: Boolean;
Info: TShellExecuteInfo;
begin
FillChar(Info, SizeOf(Info), Chr(0));
Info.cbSize := SizeOf(Info);
Info.fMask := SEE_MASK_NOCLOSEPROCESS;
Info.lpVerb := op;
Info.lpFile := fn;
Info.lpParameters := par;
Info.lpDirectory := dir;
Info.nShow := show;
OK := Boolean(ShellExecuteEx(@Info));
if OK then
begin
if wait then
begin
while
WaitForSingleObject(Info.hProcess,100)
= WAIT_TIMEOUT do
Application.ProcessMessages;
OK := GetExitCodeProcess(
Info.hProcess, DWord(Result));
end
else
Result := 0;
end;
if not OK then Result := -1;
end;
. . .
// Anywhere in your program ... perhaps at an onclick-event:
. . .
   Keybd_Event(vk_Shift,0,0,0);
   ShellExec('open',PChar('acrord32.exe'),PChar('/s ' + ExtractFilePath(Application.ExeName) + 'example.pdf'),nil,SW_SHOWNORMAL,True);
   Keybd_Event(vk_Shift,0,KEYEVENTF_KEYUP,0);

// and a second solution...

. . .
ShellExec('open',PChar(GetProgramAssociation('pdf')),PChar('/s ' + ExtractFilePath(Application.ExeName) + 'example.pdf'),nil,SW_SHOWNORMAL,True);
. . .


Edited by Ingo