ActiveX Technologies

1
ActiveX Technologies

• Shiao-Li Tsao
• June 1998

2
Outline

• History and Overview
• Families of ActiveX Technologies
• ActiveX Control
• Examples
• Useful Tools
• References

3
History and Overview

• OLE 1.0 (Object Linking and Embedding 1.0)
• compound document
• OLE 2.0
• compound document and more ..
• COM (Component Object Model)
• a component software architecture
• allows applications to be built from components
  supplied by different vendors

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History and Overview (Cont.)

• COM (Cont.)
• OLE
• software services which are developed based on
  COM

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History and Overview (Cont.)

• Automation/OLE Automation
• Let application programmable
• Macro
• Automation

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History and Overview (Cont.)

• OLE controls/OLE documents/OLE scripting
• ActiveX controls/ActiveX documents/ActiveX
  scripting
• OLE becomes OLE again

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Families of ActiveX Technologies

• ActiveX Technologies
• create more interactivities between objects and
  client programs
• ActiveX Families
• ActiveX controls
• ActiveX documents
• ActiveX scripting

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Families of ActiveX Technologies (Cont.)

• ActiveX controls
• provide two way communication mechanism between
  reusable objects and client programs
• control container (client program) IE/VB/VC
  ActiveX control test container
• control objects (reusable objects) ActiveX
  Controls

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ActiveX Control

• VBX
• reusable objects
• for visual basic only
• OLE controls
• reusable objects
• too complicated
• ActiveX controls
• based on IUnknown and self-register

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ActiveX Control (Cont.)
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ActiveX Control (Cont.)
O.S. 1. Check object ID 2. Get location Info

• Example

lt 1. Invoking (CoCreateInstance) gt 2. Show
Window lt 3. Set Properties User Input gt IE lt 4.
Method Invoking Popup MsgBox gt 5. Event Link to
another URL
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ActiveX Control (Cont.)

• All

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ActiveX Control (Cont.)

• GUI

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ActiveX Control (Cont.)

• Invoke control method

15
ActiveX Control (Cont.)

• Send events

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ActiveX Control (Cont.)

• Examine and modify properties

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Families of ActiveX Technologies (Cont.)

• ActiveX Documents
• Not OLE documents
• Enable that client programs full utilize objects
  functionality
• Components
• ActiveX documents container IE/...
• ActiveX documents server Excel/Word/

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Families of ActiveX Technologies (Cont.)
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Families of ActiveX Technologies (Cont.)

• ActiveX Scripting
• Enable communication with scripting engines and
  hosts
• scripting engines VB/JAVA scripting engines
• host IE/...

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Families of ActiveX Technologies (Cont.)

• Example
• ltHTMLgt
• ltTITLEgtActiveX Scripting Examplelt/TITLEgt
• ltBODYgt
• ltH1gtVB Scriptlt/H1gt
• ltSCRIPT LANGUAGEVBScriptgt
• document.bgColor"White"
• document.write"ltHRgt"
• document.write"Hello world !!! This is
  VBScript."
• document.write"ltHRgt"
• lt/SCRIPTgt
• ltH1gtJava Scriptlt/H1gt
• ltSCRIPT LANGUAGEJavaScriptgt
• document.writeln("ltHRgt")
• document.writeln("Hello world !!! This is
  JavaScript.")
• document.writeln("ltHRgt")
• lt/SCRIPTgt
• lt/BODYgt

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Families of ActiveX Technologies (Cont.)
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Useful Tools

• ActiveX controls
• Visual Basic ActiveX Control, ActiveX Documents
• Visual C MFC ActiveX ControlWizard, ATL COM
  AppWizard
• Visual J
• Test your controls
• IE
• ActiveX Control Test Container

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Useful Tools (Cont.)

• Explore your controls
• Regedit
• OLE/COM Object Viewer
• Design your homepage with ActiveX controls
• FrontPage
• ActiveX Control Pad
• ...

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Useful Tools (Cont.)

• Microsoft ActiveX Control Pad
• www.microsoft.com/workshop/author/cpad/download.ht
  m
• Microsoft ActiveX Development Kit
• www.microsoft.com/intdev/sdk/docs/scriptm/

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References

• MSDN, Microsoft Corp.
• Microsoft System Journal, Microsoft Press.
• Understanding ActiveX and OLE, Microsoft Press.
• Adam Denning, OLE Controls InSide OUT, Microsoft
  Press
• AL. Williams, Developing ActiveX Web Controls,
  Thomson Pub.
• Sing Li and Panos Economopouls, Visual C 5
  ActiveX COM Control Programming
• MS-VB Help
• MS-VC Help