topic Re: Using Freemaster via Delphi in FreeMASTER

Using Freemaster via Delphi

LorenzoB — Thu, 21 Jan 2021 10:57:07 GMT

I need to interface to freemaster from my application written in Delphi.
Unfortunately, I have not found any examples that illustrate how it works using my development system.
I saw that it is possible to use it via Activex, but the import procedure inside the development system does not find anything related to Freemaster. I wanted to know if anyone has experience in this regard and is able to give me some guidelines to follow.
I would also like to go directly via mcbc12.dll, but I miss the interface unit to use inside Delphi, only the h file exists for C ++.

Re: Using Freemaster via Delphi

MichalH — Thu, 21 Jan 2021 11:44:46 GMT

Dear Lorenzo,

I'm sorry I'm not familiar with how Delphi interfaces to ActiveX objects, so I can only give you some general comments. I believe you will need a type library to create a ActiveX wrapper object in Delphi.

The ActiveX type library is a part of the pcmaster.exe, some ActiveX clients are able to load it directly from the executable.
The type library is also registered in Windows Registry as "FreeMASTER ActiveX Type Library" - this import works for example in our Excel/Visual Basic examples.
The low-level registry object name is MCB.PCM - perhaps, you will be able to find it under this name.
There is also a pcmaster.tlb file in the FreeMASTER installation, you may try to import it directly.

You write about mcbc12.dll - this is a low level communication library of the older FreeMASTER version.

Please make sure to update to the latest FreeMASTER 3.1 (see https://nxp.com/freemaster)
The new mcbc30.dll replaces the older version of the DLL.
But anyways, it is not practical to interface to this low-level DLL from your Delphi code. The ActiveX interface should be the one you want to use.

Regards,
Michal

Re: Using Freemaster via Delphi

LorenzoB — Thu, 21 Jan 2021 13:16:36 GMT

Ok I'll try to do some tests to interface the ActiveX directly.

thaks

Lorenzo