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I have a server application that runs on commandline, but am wanting to create a GUI frontend to it, to make it easier for users to interact with the server program. Since I do not have the source code of the actual main application *.exe file, my only option is via a server DLL (this is for a gameserver)- this DLL is supported by the host application.

The GUI that I am thinking of will show diagnostic messages, player names (and stats) and server memory usage. Many users are finding it much too hard to host servers using this gameserver application since they say that CLI is too difficult.

Is it possible to create an interactive frontend for the CLI server application, just from the DLL? Or would I need to create a brand new program that somehow reads stats from the server application?

I have had a brief look at Google, and I've only found how to put CLI inside a GUI window, and not the other way round. Just to be clear, I want to spawn a second window to control the server application from; I do not want to completely get rid of the CLI.

AStopher
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  • I don't understand your mix of words: difficult CLI / DLL / gameserver... How CLI is related to GUI? If you want to pick some information from thirdparty application - you should use API of this application. Or try to do reverse enginering of it. Could you explain what you want more exactly? – Dmitry Sazonov Feb 25 '14 at 13:36
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    basically users don't want to deal command line and want GUI. He only have the executable at hand, but want to provide the underlying program functionality via a GUI interface. – UmNyobe Feb 25 '14 at 14:21
  • "Is it possible to create an interactive frontend for the CLI server application, just from the DLL?" We can't answer that, that depends on what the DLL contains. – PeterT Feb 25 '14 at 14:21

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I think some good starting points are:

Other techniques are based on DDE or shared memory but it seems they aren't applicable to your case.

manlio
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