What's New in JACOB 1.10

• Windows Processes
  • New proposed API to support ActiveXComponent connections to already running applications. Factory methods have been added to the ActiveXComponent to support this. (Feedback wanted)
• Variants
  • Variant now accept Java Dates in the constructor.
  • Redundant constructors removed
  • Experimental toJavaObject() method added that automatically converts to appropriate java type
  • Support added for "NOTHING", a Variant of type Dispatch with no value
  • Non functional getNull() and getEmpty() methods deprecated. They were void methods
• Event Callbacks
  • Jacob normally uses information in the registry to find the connection information needed to set up event callbacks. Excel and other programs don't put that information in the registry. A new optional parameter has been added to the DispatchEvents constructors that lets a user provide the location of the OLB or EXE that contains the information required to retrieve the events.
  • Event handlers can now return a value to calling MS Windows program. The event handlers must return an objec of type Variant if they wish to return a value. All previous event handlers still work with a void return. (This change should be backwards compatible)

Tracked Changes

Bugs
1340233	Null Program Id in Dispatch Constructor does bad things to VM(pre1)
1341763	Removed Variant serializable interface because it is not actually serializable on 2000/xp(pre1)
1224219	Memory leak in SafeArray.GetString() Olivier Laurent, Software AG Luxembourg and David Pierron, Software AG Luxembourg (pre3)
1224219	Change from UTF to UNICODE SafeArray.fromStringArray() Olivier Laurent, Software AG Luxembourg and David Pierron, Software AG Luxembourg (pre3)
Patches
1386454	Return values from event callbacks (pre3)
1394001	Missing variable initialization (pre3)
1208570	Support Excel and other objects events(pre1)
Feature Requests(pre1)
1241037	Support NULL VT_DISPATCH.(pre2)
1169851	Support of VB's Nothing.(pre2)
1185167	Provide methods to connect to running instance.(pre1)
959381	Auto variant to object conversion method method added to Variant.(pre1)
1341779	Variant should accept java.util.Date in Variant(Object) constructor(pre1)