Delphi 2007: open another application in delphi and perform actions in that application

Would someone explain me which fu开发者_如何学JAVAnctions/procedures/functionalities I need of Delphi 2007 to open other applications and perform actions in those applications.

For example: I want Delphi to start a mathematical software application, export data to this application, perform some actions on that data and then retrieve the data from the application to Delphi.

At the moment, I'm not too familiar with the ShellExecute command.

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Most applications do not support external automation, so your only option in those cases is to use mouse_event() and keybd_event() to simulate mouse/keyboard activity, and/or use PostMessage() and/or SendMessage() to send simulated messages directly to specific windows. Automating an application that does not support automation is not trivial, depending on the complexity of its UI.