What are COM-enabled applications?

[Tempo]

As the subject of this post suggests, I have one question; what are
COM-enabled applications? I believe Microsoft Word is one of these
apps, but what else? Is a web browser, Paint, Solitare, games, etc? I'm
not sure if it varies from operating system to operating system, but I
am talking about COM applications in Windows. Thanks for any and all of
your help and time.

 

[Ravi Teja]

COM is Windows only. (Actually there is DCOM for Linux, but that's
another story).

Read about it here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Component_object_model

 

[Cameron Laird]

As the subject of this post suggests, I have one question; what are
COM-enabled applications? I believe Microsoft Word is one of these
apps, but what else? Is a web browser, Paint, Solitare, games, etc? I'm
not sure if it varies from operating system to operating system, but I
am talking about COM applications in Windows. Thanks for any and all of
your help and time.

As Mr. Teja has already written in response, COM is a big, and
in some ways dated, subject. To answer your specific questions:
yes, most Web browsers I know for Windows *are* COM-enabled,
Solitaire typically isn't, and I'm not near a Win* machine now
to confirm that Paint is.

Python has good COM abilities. While, to my surprise, I just
realized that I'm unaware of anyone having put together a COM
"explorer" with Python, it would be a straightforward project.
In the meantime, <URL:
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/do...ML/QuickStartClientCom.html#UsingComConstants >
might interest you.

 

[Duncan Booth]

Python has good COM abilities. While, to my surprise, I just
realized that I'm unaware of anyone having put together a COM
"explorer" with Python, it would be a straightforward project.

Don't the tools that come with Python's COM support do enough for you?

....\lib\site-packages\win32com\client\combrowse.py for example. (Or inside
PythonWin it is on the Tools menu).

 

[Cameron Laird]

Don't the tools that come with Python's COM support do enough for you?

...\lib\site-packages\win32com\client\combrowse.py for example. (Or inside
PythonWin it is on the Tools menu).

I was quibbling about the difference between a polished application
and a toolkit; please, I don't want anyone to think that I AT ALL
disparage the achievement of win32.

Another recommendation for the original poster: <URL:
http://www.python.org/windows/win32com/QuickStartClientCom.html >.