:developerWorks: Connect KDE Applications using DCOP
developerWorks: Connect KDE Applications using DCOP Mar 9, 2004, 06 :15 UTC (4 Talkback[s]) (11657 reads) (Other stories by Martyn Honeyford)
"Every KDE desktop (from version 2.0 onwards) contains a little known, yet very powerful feature called 'Desktop COmmunication Protocol' or DCOP for short. From a developer's point of view, DCOP makes it very easy to add powerful scripting functionality to your applications. From a user's point of view, DCOP allows you to easily take control of your KDE applications and combine them in interesting and powerful ways.
"At its heart, DCOP is basically a lightweight mechanism for inter-process communication which operates over sockets. DCOP comprises a single server (dcopserver, which is started automatically when KDE starts) and any number of clients (DCOP-enabled applications). DCOP clients can send messages to each other (via the server) to request information, ask for functions to be performed, and so on. For instance, Konqueror may (and indeed does) send DCOP messages to KMail to start up a new window with the 'To' field filled in when a 'mailto' link is clicked..."
