Controlling applications through inter-process communication

At a computer system including a non-scriptable application running in an application process space, the application including application program interfaces, an application extension component, and an inter-process communication module, the inter-process communication component configured to participate in inter-process communication with other components external the application process space using an inter-process communication protocol, the application extension component configured to translate between inter-process communication and application program interface calls, the application also including a user-interface permitting user interaction with the application, a method for controlling the application through inter-process communication, the method comprising

• an act of the inter-process communication component receiving inter-process communication from a software component external to application process space, the incoming inter-process communications representing a call to application program interface of the application;
• an act of the application extension component converting the incoming inter-process communication into input data formatted for compatibility with the application program interface of the application;
• and
• an act of application extension component calling the application program interface with the formatted input data to programmatically invoke the functionality of the application extension component such that the application program interface can be invoked without having to interact with the user-interface for the application.

A computer system, the computer system comprising:

• one or more processors;
• system memory;
• one or more physical storage media, the physical storage media having stored thereon computer-executable instructions representing an application specific extensibility point for interoperating with an external test harness that is external to the computer system, the application specific extensibility point for testing a portion of a non-scriptable application that is otherwise only testable through interaction with the application's user-interface, application specific extensibility point configured to:
• instantiate a service extension in the application process space of the non-scriptable application;
• execute a script to load an inter-process communication component into the application process space of the non-scriptable application, the inter-process communication component configured to communicate with the external test harness using inter-process communication;
• receive commands from the external test harness via inter-process network communication, the commands for programmatically testing a portion of the non-scriptable application that is otherwise only testable through interaction with the non-scriptable application's user-interface;
• and
• call APIs of the non-scriptable application to invoke an internal test definition to test portions of the non-scriptable application in accordance with the commands received from the external test harness.