NANY 2015 Release: ROTTools

[wraith808]

NANY 2015 Release Information

Application Name	ROTTools
Short Description	Diagnostic Tools for interfacing with the ROT for developers
Supported OSes	Windows 7 (Should work in Vista/8 also, but untested)
Web Page	placeholder
Setup File	Portable
Description	The Running Object Table (ROT) is a way for applications on different threads to communicate with each other- applications can register objects in the table, to be accessed by moniker from other threads and applications.  It's a technique in decline (personally I'd use a WCF application or something like that now), but dealing with other implementations and legacy applications, I have to deal with it every now and again.  This time when I had to deal with it, I realized that the SDK package from MS had done away with the ROT viewer.  And the only one that I could find was an old one that I'd downloaded years ago, written in Delphi.  I'm not even sure that I could find it again! But accessing the ROT, while sort of arcane, isn't very hard.  So I made my own ROT viewer tool.  I'm also planning to put more in it possibly, as I need it or as requested.  Right now, its basic- I'll refine it for the release, but if you click the refresh button, it should display all objects accessible in the ROT.  The other function is a bit less polished- if you enter something in the textbox at the top, and press the 'i' button, it will try to access that object in the ROT and display the information retrieved.  It will display it in red if there is a problem accessing the object, as there sometimes is.  Right now the only requisites for error are (a) not found by moniker (b) the moniker passed in could not be parsed, or (c) the interface on the IUnknown retrieved cannot be queried.
Features	Implemented Shows objects in the ROT Allows the user to query by moniker, and shows in red if the object could not be fully queried Planned Allow the user to specify whether the window should always be on top or not Specify an opacity of the window ...?
Screenshots
Screencast	placeholder
Documentation	placeholder
Installation	With .NET 4.0 installed, unzip application to location and run.
Uninstalling	Delete application install location.
Notes	Requires .NET 4.0. This is a development tool for a dying technology, so there might not be anything registered in your ROT, and that's OK.  Just wanted to have an accessible tool for those of us who need it.

[wraith808]

As there hasn't been any interest in this - even to the point where there are zero downloads (which I thought there might not be), I'm releasing it as is. I've been using it at work, regularly, and it works quite well- I haven't had the need to have the always on top nor the opacity- nor any settings at all, really.

I'm open to any suggestions, but for my usage, it's pretty much done.

[x16wda]

Looks fine to me - it showed two items in my system (both had display names like "clsid:etc etc"). So it runs on Win 8.1 x64 without issue.

I did the refresh a couple times, but I was scared to click the red X while I had something highlighted. Might have kicked off the self destruct sequence? 

[wraith808]

Looks fine to me - it showed two items in my system (both had display names like "clsid:etc etc"). So it runs on Win 8.1 x64 without issue.

I did the refresh a couple times, but I was scared to click the red X while I had something highlighted. Might have kicked off the self destruct sequence? 

Nah... that's just to exit.  I was going to get rid of the frame... but found that I like it better *with* the frame