communication between windows?

[wnoonw]

I am currently building an application that incorporates a glossary. The glossary is implemented as a seperate application launched from a main application. The glossary can be launched two ways:

1. By clicking a glossary button.
2. Or by clicking a specific term in a textfield. [In this instance I need to pass information about what term needs to be displayed.]

When the glossary is not currently open, the launch routine uses Shell.run() to open the application in a seperate window. At this time I can pass the glossary application the information it may need through the cmdline.

My problem arises when the glossary window is already open. I have searched unsuccessfully for a graceful way to pass the required information (i.e. what term to display).

I first tried to simply use Shell.run() again with different cmdline parameters and different show_flag values. However, that resulted in a launch of a seperate glossary window (thus I had 2 glossary windows open).

I then found a really hacky solution where I pass the term information to the glossary window through the "caption" parameter. The glossary app is set to continually query the value in the caption and reacts when it changes. It works but it is definitely not elegant.

Therefore my question is:
Is there an easier to communicate from one application to another in a seperate window?

Any thoughts, ideas, or solutions will be greatly appreciated.

[SWFKit]

You can use the LocalConnection object in Flash.

[wnoonw]

thanks. I wasn't even thinking in that direction.