sending instructions to programs

[jockex1]

Hi!

I'm wondering if there is a way to send instructions to programs from my code.
For example I may want my code to start media player and play a file, then later pause it etc. starting a program is no problem but further controlling it seems to be the real problem. I guess it could be done with some hotkey macros like autohotkey but that would mess things up if the user is using the mouse and keyboard at the same time. The reason I want to do this is to later combine it with the SpeechAPI and create a "star trek computer" which you can tell "play this song" or "look up this word on google". I've been looking at IPC but from what I read that was most about networking, some people talk about MFC. I'm sure I could read myself to how it's done if it's possible but I don't really know where to look.

btw, the star trek computer is a distant goal, I realize I'll have to take this step by step.

[modoran]

Windows Media Player can be fully controlled by COM interface (btw you DON'T NEED WMP to play/pause/stop a music file if you interact directly with the codecs already installed), but other programs can not be.

[Computergeek01]

MSDN deals with networking IPC because that's the extreme end of IPC programming. If you just mentally remove the parts where you have to establish a network connection and a communications protocal etc. then the same rules still apply. If what modoran said is true (I've never tried it) then using an established\standardized method to control the application would be the way to go, otherwise you'd be injecting threads into Windows Media player and that can get annoying real quick.