Set me straight regarding DLL's and .au3

[amfony]

Hello everyone.

Just a question which i cant really find answers by myself.

What is the purpose of using DLL's in scripts? I see lots (and use) scripts which use Dlls to (i assume) add some new or external functionality, is my assumption correct? I understand the 'link library' and memory saving ideals of DLLS so im pretttty sure thats correct. if im correct that Thats great. My question after that is how do we know which DLLs can we use? Where do we find out that , for example, i used the captureDLL here http://www.autoitscript.com/fileman/users/Lazycat/dlls.htmlto make a screen capture (for lab computers i assure), i stumbled across this in the forums and then used it. But im wondering is there a resource for dlls and description on what they do?

My next question is to do with NAME.au3 files (?). I like to read the forums alot to get inspriation, and i keep seeing inparticualr this one file/include file/i dont know what it is:

IE.au3

Is this file like an include file (which i believe is a file of pre-made,housed in an external file,functions)? If so how do we know, again, what can we achive with this file, and what other .au3 files there are.

Sorry i just in the air about this - i like to know all the tools in my toolbox even if i dont know how to use them.

Thanks alot.

[jvanegmond]

Finding information about DLL's can be a pain.

I suggest you start at msdn.microsoft.com.

[jinxter]

the win32api is a pretty nice start.... too bad it's hard to get hold of.

the help files in Visual Studio might provide some answers aswell...

[amfony]

gracias manadar. What about the au3 Includes? Am i on track about thoes - or i have no idea?

[jvanegmond]

The includes are just scripts full of variable declarations and functions. You can find these files in your Autoit directory then \include\. Look at them, they are good learning material.

[SmOke_N]

the win32api is a pretty nice start.... too bad it's hard to get hold of.

the help files in Visual Studio might provide some answers aswell...

Not too hard:

http://www.autoitscript.com/forum/index.ph...2691&hl=api

[amfony]

great thanks for the help guys. Must say that the link to Gafrosts resource is great - overwhelming - and will give me some reading to do to know what to do with the constants.

Thanks for the confirmations and clarifications though!

[jinxter]

hmm... not to bad, but it was not that I meant... I meant the hlpfile with the dll file functions and a description of what they are used for. I havn't found it yet, I know I have it somewhere.