# Re: External application under Windows

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-external-application-under-windows/95576>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [June 6, 2006, 5:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-external-application-under-windows/95576 "2006-06-06T17:26:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [June 6, 2006, 5:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-external-application-under-windows/95576/1 "2006-06-06T17:26:42Z")

</div>

Dear Chris,

thank you for that link, it works very well - for Matlab.  
However, I’d still like to know how this Program.Application  
thing works in general, since I can not talk to my Gnuplot  
installation (built in Cygwin) via  
class Gnuplot  
def initialize  
@ole = WIN32OLE.new(“Gnuplot.Application”)  
#“Gnuplot.Application.Single”  
end  
end

Maybe this is a path question ? If so, how do I tell win32ole to  
associate  
Gnuplot.Application to C:\cygwin\usr\local\bin ?  
I’ve tried to add this to the system variable but that didn’t work  
( `initialize': unknown OLE server:`Gnuplot.Application’  
(WIN32OLERuntimeError).)

Thanks,  
Best regards.

Axel

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [June 6, 2006, 6:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-external-application-under-windows/95576/2 "2006-06-06T18:54:55Z")

</div>

unknown wrote:

> Dear Chris,
> 
> thank you for that link, it works very well - for Matlab.

Your welcome, glad it helped

> Maybe this is a path question ? If so, how do I tell win32ole to  
> associate  
> Gnuplot.Application to C:\cygwin\usr\local\bin ?  
> I’ve tried to add this to the system variable but that didn’t work  
> ( `initialize': unknown OLE server: `Gnuplot.Application’  
> (WIN32OLERuntimeError).)

I don’t have much OLE experience, but my impression is that the app must  
support OLE. Thus, if Gnuplot supports OLE it will be recognized as an  
OLE server. However, given Gnuplot is not a Windows app it probably  
doesn’t support OLE, but it may support command-line auotmation, since  
alot of \*NIX apps incorporate that ability (see  
[http://rgnuplot.sourceforge.net/](http://rgnuplot.sourceforge.net/)). You could also check for Ruby  
libraries that provide similar functionality, i.e.  
[http://rgplot.rubyforge.org/](http://rgplot.rubyforge.org/)

cheers  
Chris