The COM Bridge

Many logging and DX cluster programs drive DX Atlas 2 through its COM automation interface, the DxAtlas.Atlas object. The COM bridge lets them drive DX Atlas Pro instead, unchanged: it is a small COM server, DxAtlasBridge.exe, installed beside DX Atlas Pro on Windows, that registers itself under DX Atlas 2's names - its ProgID, DxAtlas.Atlas, its class id and its type library - and turns each call it receives into requests of the WebSocket API.

The bridge exists for existing software. A new program should use the WebSocket API directly: it can do everything the bridge does, and more.

COM Registration

The DX Atlas Pro installer registers the bridge as a COM server, and uninstalling DX Atlas Pro unregisters it. This COM registration replaces DX Atlas 2's: once DX Atlas Pro is installed, a program that creates DxAtlas.Atlas gets DX Atlas Pro, whether DX Atlas 2 is installed or not. Both 32-bit and 64-bit programs can use it.

To register or unregister the bridge as a COM server by hand, run in a command prompt opened as administrator:

"C:\Program Files\Afreet\DxAtlasPro\DxAtlasBridge.exe" /regserver
"C:\Program Files\Afreet\DxAtlasPro\DxAtlasBridge.exe" /unregserver

To give the DxAtlas.Atlas name back to DX Atlas 2, unregister the bridge, then reinstall DX Atlas 2.

How It Works

• Each DxAtlas.Atlas object a program creates opens its own connection to DX Atlas Pro, so what it draws is removed when the program releases the object, or exits.
• If DX Atlas Pro is not running, the bridge starts it, as creating the object started DX Atlas 2, and DX Atlas Pro closes by itself once the last program using it has released its object. If it is already running, the bridge uses the running copy, which stays open.
• Calls between Map.BeginUpdate and Map.EndUpdate are sent as one batch, so the map is drawn once, when EndUpdate is called.
• The bridge works on DX Atlas Pro's first map only.
• The bridge writes the errors it meets to its own log, having no window to show them in: DxAtlasBridge_<date>.txt in the Logs folder of the folder that Help > Data Folder opens, beside DX Atlas Pro's own DxAtlasPro_<date>.txt.
• A copy of DX Atlas Pro whose beta or trial period has expired does not accept connections, so creating the object fails.

What Is Covered

Every object, property, method and event of DX Atlas 2's type library is there: IAtlas, IDxMap, IDxClock, ICustomLayers, ICustomLayer, ILabelInfo and the IDxAtlasEvents events. Most map to DX Atlas Pro's features directly; these work differently:

DX Atlas 2	DX Atlas Pro
Map.Zoom	converted to and from DX Atlas Pro's own zoom, so 1 is still the whole world
Map.ReliefVisible, Land3D, Ocean3D	Land Relief and Ocean Relief; ReliefVisible sets both, and reads as on while either is
Map.PrefixesVisible	the DXCC Entities layer, with its prefixes
Map.ItuZonesVisible	the ARRL ITU zones
Map.GridSquaresVisible	the VUCC grid squares
Map.IonoLayer	the Ionosphere button's maps: MUF, foF2, hmF2, foE and the D layer's density as theirs; the magnetic maps as Magnetic Dip; the aurora as the Aurora Oval
Map.MouseMode	MM_USER leaves the clicks to your program, as before; every other mode is DX Atlas Pro's own mouse handling
Map.Dimmed	the map drawn darker under your layers
Map.PlotField	DX Atlas 2's field, in its layout and bands
Map.SaveImage	the map as drawn on the screen, as PNG, or as BMP when asked
Map.MarkSquare, Atlas.LoadSquares	the worked and confirmed squares drawn as areas, yellow and green
Atlas.LoadPins, Map.PinsVisible	the pins of a DX Atlas 2 pin file drawn as red dots, with their comments as hints
Atlas.IndexKind	the Lists panel on the DXCC, Cities or IOTA layer
Atlas.SaveSettings, LoadSettings	DX Atlas Pro's settings, saved and loaded as JSON; a DX Atlas 2 .ini file is not read
custom layers	all five kinds - points, lines, areas, labels and glyphs - with their colours, brightness, fonts and glyph bitmaps; every line is drawn along the great circle
LabelClicked, LabelHintRequest	raised for labels and glyphs, with the ILabelInfo of DX Atlas 2; the hint set in LabelHintRequest is shown as before

Accepted and ignored, as they have nothing to act on in DX Atlas Pro:

• Atlas.LoadCities and Atlas.LoadIslands - DX Atlas Pro has its own city and island lists;
• Map.ShowFieldValue, which did nothing in DX Atlas 2 either;
• Map.ActiveLabels.

An Example

The Examples page has a VBScript program that drives DX Atlas Pro through the bridge.