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The Daily Newbie Using the App Object

Explains the basics of using the App Object.

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The
Daily Newbie
“To Start Things
Off Right”

          
May 8,
2001      
             


Love it, hate it, or just don't care, the Daily Newbie is back. I have decided to change the format a little. Although 
	the layout is going to be the same as it always was, I am going to start using the PSC Ask A Pro discussion forum
	to choose my topics. I find that newbies make up a large part of that forum and they ask some pretty good questions. 
	Also, if you have a question, email me and I will try to work it in.




Today’s Topic:
         The App Object
Name Derived
From:     
 "Application" 

Used for:         
Retriving information about your application at runtime.
VB Help Description: It determines or specifies information 
about the application's title, version information, the path and name of its executable file and Help files, 
and whether or not a previous instance of the application is running.
Plain
English: Returns information about the running application.

Syntax:  X =    App.{Property}   




Properties:  

Usage:     MsgBox "This application is named: " & App.Title   

	Note: This article shows the most common and useful properties for the App object. There are a total of 30 
	properties that you can access from code.


Comments - The comments that were added in the Make tab of the project before compiling.
Company Name = The company name that was added in the Make tab before compiling. This is useful for copyright 
	protection when creating reusable objects (.dll's or .ocx's)
	ActiveX .dll's or
EXEName - The name of the executable file that is running.
FileDescription - Again, entered in the Make tab before compiling. A general description of a project.
HelpFile - The Windows help file associated with this application. This property could be used to make sure
		the help file exists before trying to open it.
Major - The Major application version. In MyApp Version 2.5.34, the Major Version would be "2".
Minor - The Minor application version. In MyApp Version 2.5.34, the Minor Version would be "5".
Revision - The Revision (or "Build") number of they application version. In MyApp Version 2.2.34, the Revision would be "34"
Path - Probably the most commonly used property. Returns the full path to the folder that the executable was 
				run from.
Title - The name of the application (i.e. MyCoolApp or whatever you compiled it as). This is not necessarily the same as the
			EXEName, since EXE's can be renamed at will. 



Methods:  

StartLogging - Sets the execution log path to a log file. Can also be set to log to the NT Event Log.
LogEvent - Causes a log event to be written to the 
  log path that was specified in the StartLogging method.

Example:

To find out what path the .exe is running from:




		MsgBox "The application is running from " & App.Path
	




Today's code snippet returns a list of information about the current 
application: 		


Copy & Paste Code:



    




	Debug.Print "Application Name: " & App.Title
    Debug.Print "Running From: " & App.Path
    Debug.Print "Version = " & App.Major & "." & App.Minor & App.Minor





Some Notes about the App Object:


You can use the App.PrevInstance property to prevent your application from being run more than once on a single machine:
    




If App.PrevInstance = True Then
	MsgBox App.Title & " is already running.
End If





You can open a local file from the application's folder without knowing what path the application is running from:

Open App.Path & "customer.dat" For Input As #1