When you are supplied all the dlls that an application uses and these are all COM object it is possible to discover things about the application that you would otherwise not normally be able to do. Some people may call this “hacking” but others like myself would prefer the less confrontational description of “investigating”

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Sometimes I cannot quite get want I want from Raiser’s Edge using the API. Or if I can it is very slow to get the information. For example when you get a collection of top level records, say constituents, there are filter objects which work well, you can also use the custom where clause which works when there is not a filter parameter. However what do you do when you want a combination of different areas of The Raiser’s Edge all combined into one selection.

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I am not sure how many people out there would even dream of using C++ together with the API but considering there really is no documentation out there for this type of project I thought that I would try to put together some notes on how it is possible. The API is COM based and there is no reason why you cannot use C++ (just possibly more of a question of why you would ever want to). This posting assumes a basic knowledge of C++.

Firstly why would you every want to use C++. Sometimes this is a necessity. You may be using old C or C++ legacy code that you want to integrate directly with the API. In which case here are a few tips to get you started.
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One of my most long standing problems that I have had with RE:VBA is showing a form modally. This in itself is not difficult but as soon as you move away from Raiser’s Edge, bring up another window in front of the modal form and then go back to Raiser’s Edge, the modal form has disappeared. Because the form is modal you are not able to access the underlying window (let’s call this the parent window). This is a pain as the only way to bring it back is to place another window over the parent window and then minimize it. This is not hard to do but it is harder to explain to users and not very intuitive.

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