API DLL confusion

[Mateus]

Hi All,

As a novice programmer I have only a little knowledge of using APIs so I hope someone can help.

I've been given, what the developer called, a "very basic" API which is in the form of a COM DLL file without documentation.

I need to use this API to get customer names from a third-party program and copy them to the Windows clipboard. So very simple stuff.

However, having added the DLL to my basic project I can't get all the functions to work.

The first part works fine (program login) but everything else returns either NULL or an error. In the example below, I get an interface error.

Dim qLogin As New QuestAPI.Session <= Works fine
qLogin.Login(sUsername, sPassword)
​

but...

Dim qCustomer As New QuestAPI.ICustomer <= Error: 'New cannot be used on an interface'
sCustomerName = qCustomer.FullName.ToString

Dim qCustomer as QuestAPI.ICustomer <= Does nothing

Implements ICustomer
sCustomerName = Me.FullName.ToString <= Does nothing
​

Can anyone offer any help? Perhaps someone recommend an API guide.

Cheers,
M.

 

[Herman]

The only thing that can answer your question is proper documentation from the publisher. The only thing I come up with searching QuestAPI is in regards with the Minecraft game, but obviously that has nothing to do with customer management. Maybe a little more information as to what the software is will help us help you.

API stands for Application Programming Interface. There are as many different API's as there are applications. Some are well written, some are not, but they usually ALL come with some form of documentation explaining how to use it.

 

[Mateus]

Hi Herman,
I contacted the developer and it turns out the API can't do what I wanted, plus it was written over 10 years ago and no one seems to know how it works. I'm going to try to use Windows APIs instead to grab text from within application.
Cheers,
M.