Hi,

I started a project in ooRexx (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tibiscus/kids-little-universe-reduce-illiteracy-around-the?ref=nav_search&result=project&term=little%20universe) and I would like to ask you to help me with your feedback (from your
experience, what you have read, the future of the below technologies, risks and so on).

The application is a HTA one, started from a C or C++ program in order to avoid some security problems. It is mainly written in ooRexx and will use BSF4ooRexx to interact with useful Java programs.

The HTA/ooRexx combination has some advantages over a Qt implementation, which was the other candidate.

I am missing the WSH support in the ooRexx interpreters 4.x and newer. Any information about this subject?

Is Microsoft planning to kill mshta.exe?

Do you believe that starting an ooRexx program (which extracts the HTA file with ooRexx code from an encrypted database) from within a C/C++ program is a good solution and it will be enough to protect the HTA file from manipulation?

Other important aspects to care of?

Any suggestions?

Thank you,
Mircea

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Hi Mircea,

On 21.10.2018 09:37, mgombos@gmail.com wrote:

I started a project in ooRexx (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tibiscus/kids-little-universe-reduce-illiteracy-around-the?ref=nav_search&result=project&term=little%20universe) and I would like to ask you to help me with your feedback (from your

experience, what you have read, the future of the below technologies, risks and so on).

The application is a HTA one, started from a C or C++ program in order to avoid some security problems. It is mainly written in ooRexx and will use BSF4ooRexx to interact with useful Java programs.

The HTA/ooRexx combination has some advantages over a Qt implementation, which was the other candidate.

I am missing the WSH support in the ooRexx interpreters 4.x and newer. Any information about this subject?

Is Microsoft planning to kill mshta.exe?

Don't know, but I think it has been in maintenance mode for a very long time. COM/OLE based
technology has to be supported by Microsoft for a long time to come as it has been adopted so
heavily, even by Microsoft products themselves.

They want everyone to use .Net instead (which you could from ooRexx using BSF4ooRexx), but I would
instead use Java (JavaFX as the GUI, which also has a HTML+CSS control, e.g. cf.
<https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/javafx/api/javafx/scene/web/WebView.html> or <https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/javafx/api/javafx/scene/web/WebEngine.html>).

Do you believe that starting an ooRexx program (which extracts the HTA file with ooRexx code from an encrypted database) from within a C/C++ program is a good solution and it will be enough to protect the HTA file from manipulation?

Other important aspects to care of?

Why is it that you have been using HTA and want to keep using it? Do you have many HTA-apps?

Any suggestions?

As you have been using BSF4ooRexx already I would advise in using JavaFX as the GUI component as it
is possible to use it from ooRexx (hence no Java code needed, still you would be able to take
advantage of that Java instructure). It will make your app multi-platform in addition!

If interested there are presentations and/or articles on the RexxLA symposium pages, cf.
<http://www.rexxla.org>.

If you have any questions then please ask them!

[Also, you should evaluate ooRexx 5.0 beta, which has many great features and improvements over 4.x
and earlier!]

Best regards

---rony

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Ad RexxScript and JavaFX: BSF4ooRexx comes with full support of the javax.script package, making it
easy to employ Rexx as a Java scripting language. As JavaFX exploits javax.script it becomes
possible to use Rexx script code for JavaFX event code handling or calling Rexx script from the
JavaFX FXML files, which declaratively describe the UI that JavaFX will put up.

Both technologies were introduced at RexxLA's International Rexx symposiums and there are slides as
well as articles that explain both, RexxScript and JavaFX (employing RexxScript). If interested you
can get both from <http://www.rexxla.org/events/2017/schedule.html>.

---rony



On 22.10.2018 16:49, Rony wrote:

Hi Mircea,

On 21.10.2018 09:37, mgombos@gmail.com wrote:

I started a project in ooRexx (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tibiscus/kids-little-universe-reduce-illiteracy-around-the?ref=nav_search&result=project&term=little%20universe) and I would like to ask you to help me with your feedback (from your

experience, what you have read, the future of the below technologies, risks and so on).

The application is a HTA one, started from a C or C++ program in order to avoid some security problems. It is mainly written in ooRexx and will use BSF4ooRexx to interact with useful Java programs.

The HTA/ooRexx combination has some advantages over a Qt implementation, which was the other candidate.

I am missing the WSH support in the ooRexx interpreters 4.x and newer. Any information about this subject?

Is Microsoft planning to kill mshta.exe?

Don't know, but I think it has been in maintenance mode for a very long time. COM/OLE based
technology has to be supported by Microsoft for a long time to come as it has been adopted so
heavily, even by Microsoft products themselves.

They want everyone to use .Net instead (which you could from ooRexx using BSF4ooRexx), but I would
instead use Java (JavaFX as the GUI, which also has a HTML+CSS control, e.g. cf.
<https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/javafx/api/javafx/scene/web/WebView.html> or
<https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/javafx/api/javafx/scene/web/WebEngine.html>).

Do you believe that starting an ooRexx program (which extracts the HTA file with ooRexx code from an encrypted database) from within a C/C++ program is a good solution and it will be enough to protect the HTA file from manipulation?

Other important aspects to care of?

Why is it that you have been using HTA and want to keep using it? Do you have many HTA-apps?

Any suggestions?

As you have been using BSF4ooRexx already I would advise in using JavaFX as the GUI component as it
is possible to use it from ooRexx (hence no Java code needed, still you would be able to take
advantage of that Java instructure). It will make your app multi-platform in addition!

If interested there are presentations and/or articles on the RexxLA symposium pages, cf.
<http://www.rexxla.org>.

If you have any questions then please ask them!

[Also, you should evaluate ooRexx 5.0 beta, which has many great features and improvements over 4.x
and earlier!]

Best regards

---rony

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Am Montag, 22. Oktober 2018 16:49:32 UTC+2 schrieb Rony:

Hi Mircea,

On 21.10.2018 09:37, mgombos@gmail.com wrote:

I started a project in ooRexx (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tibiscus/kids-little-universe-reduce-illiteracy-around-the?ref=nav_search&result=project&term=little%20universe) and I would like to ask you to help me with your feedback (from your

experience, what you have read, the future of the below technologies, risks and so on).

The application is a HTA one, started from a C or C++ program in order to avoid some security problems. It is mainly written in ooRexx and will use BSF4ooRexx to interact with useful Java programs.

The HTA/ooRexx combination has some advantages over a Qt implementation, which was the other candidate.

I am missing the WSH support in the ooRexx interpreters 4.x and newer. Any information about this subject?

Is Microsoft planning to kill mshta.exe?

Don't know, but I think it has been in maintenance mode for a very long time. COM/OLE based
technology has to be supported by Microsoft for a long time to come as it has been adopted so
heavily, even by Microsoft products themselves.

They want everyone to use .Net instead (which you could from ooRexx using BSF4ooRexx), but I would
instead use Java (JavaFX as the GUI, which also has a HTML+CSS control, e.g. cf.
<https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/javafx/api/javafx/scene/web/WebView.html> or
<https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/javafx/api/javafx/scene/web/WebEngine.html>).

Do you believe that starting an ooRexx program (which extracts the HTA file with ooRexx code from an encrypted database) from within a C/C++ program is a good solution and it will be enough to protect the HTA file from manipulation?

Other important aspects to care of?

Why is it that you have been using HTA and want to keep using it? Do you have many HTA-apps?

Any suggestions?

As you have been using BSF4ooRexx already I would advise in using JavaFX as the GUI component as it
is possible to use it from ooRexx (hence no Java code needed, still you would be able to take
advantage of that Java instructure). It will make your app multi-platform in addition!

If interested there are presentations and/or articles on the RexxLA symposium pages, cf.
<http://www.rexxla.org>.

If you have any questions then please ask them!

[Also, you should evaluate ooRexx 5.0 beta, which has many great features and improvements over 4.x
and earlier!]

Best regards

---rony

Hi Rony,

thank you very much for your, as usual, very competent answer.

It will take some time to analyze all your answers and recommendations and I apologize for that. I worked in projects with JSP, AWT, Swing and JSF to create the GUIs.

One answer from me about HTA: the programs I wrote and the ones I will write will run on old, small computers, XP and Vista ones mainly, with around 512 MB main memory, donated to the children who live now on refugees camps or poor countries. I will not
have enough hardware resources to run huge programs and HTAs are running well on such weak computers. I was not able to find a better alternative.

Thank you very much again,
Mircea

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