Letting a program host, what technology to use?

[Spek]

Hi,

I'm trying to make an application that can launch one or more specific tools. Basically these tools are just *.exe programs, or maybe websites that make use of a web service.

Now this application should work as a host, delivering all kinds of functionality
(selection forms, executing queries, ...). That means the tools I launch from it, must be able to talk with this host program somehow.

Now the question is, what would be a good way to do it? I used Windows Messaging in the past to let two programs talks, but I feel this is a little bit outdated. Nowadays we have activeX, SOAP, and so on. I'm not sure what to pick though. Time I should catch on with modern technology!

Rick

 

[jmcilhinney]

Are you saying that you're creating all the individual "tools" yourself, or that they already exist?

 

[Spek]

I'm making the tools myself indeed. However, in the future other persons might make tools as well, so a somewhat user-friendly interface is important here.

The main purpose is to move common functionality from the specific tools to another package (DLL, web service, server program, whatever it may be). These tasks are:
- Maintaining a file system on a server + dialogs
- Connected to multiple databases (autocad, and some others)
- Executing (Python) scripts
- Selection dialogs (pick itemX from a list)

These functions return in most tools I'll have to write, so I thought why not centering it into one package? I was thinking about a host program running on a server. But I could also let a program run locally, use DLL's, and so on. So many ways to do it. So I was wondering what is common these days.
Basically I just need 2 programs talking with each other.