Access ProjectWise datasource from external Windows application

As most people begin posts: "I am new to programming ProjectWise but..."

Simply, I wish to build a standalone Windows application that will connect to a ProjectWise datasource. Subsequent actions will be a future puzzle; for now I need to log in to the datasource. Examples given here and elsewhere seem to use VBA, and if not run inside MicroStation, then use Mcrosoft Office. This seems rather odd and is not useful for a standalone application. Can someone please point to a complete code example? There are lots of fragments, and whilst not expecting a complete running application, the core functions to access PW would be very helpful.   

From a previous post: "Could Bentley create a simple read/write project property example and post it here (and add it to the PW sdk)". The SDK is not particularly friendly as is and this would be invaluable.

Many thanks, Dale