VC ATL, (Slightly OT) General ActiveX information?

(Slightly OT) General ActiveX information?

Author	Message
Clueless Chr #1 / 5	(Slightly OT) General ActiveX information? Hi all, I've bought a bunch of books lately on COM and ATL (Inside COM, Effective COM, ATL Internals, the Grimes books, etc). That's a lot of information on ATL and COM, but one thing I can't remember coming across is information on ActiveX itself. I assume that an ActiveX control is just a COM component that implements a number of specific interfaces, or something along those lines, but I haven't found anything detailing this. For example, I've written 3 perfectly functional ActiveX components in ATL for a Web site I'm coding. The code is pure pasta - a lot of it's shared, and I've accomplished code reuse through cut-n-paste. I'd like to put the shared code into a number of smaller COM components, and then build my 3 larger controls from these. But I can't find anything on how an ActiveX control would register COM components that it's composed of. Do my high level ActiveXs have to 'manually' install them? Do they low-level components have to be ActiveX? Is there an 'IInstallable' interface or something like that? Another issue: I'd like my ActiveX components to live from one Web page to another. Who wouldn't? I don't know that I care about persistence so much as I'd rather the DLLs weren't loaded and unloaded all the time. Is there an IDontKillMe interface for this? Beyond answering these questions, what I'm really after is a book that'll let me answer them for myself. Actually a site would be better - I've about blown my book budget already. Thanks a lot, Chris
Fri, 14 Nov 2003 22:05:34 GMT

Alexander Nickolo #2 / 5	(Slightly OT) General ActiveX information? You won't find much about ActiveX because that is a fictitious term. What it means is usually either ActiveX Controls or Automation. (Some mean the COM DLLs produced by VB, BTW...) So don't bother looking further... You can achieve code reuse on the source level as well - no need to go binary. All you have to do is bundle all the top-level controls in a single DLL (as MS did with the common controls for example). Then the whole arsenal of C++ is at your disposal. I usually recommend source code reuse over COM binary reuse. For the last question - you may be interested in the so called Browser Helper Objects (BHO) in IE 4 and above. Search on MSDN and you'll find some articles... -- ===================================== Alexander Nickolov Microsoft MVP [VC], MCSD MVP VC FAQ: http://www.mvps.org/vcfaq ===================================== Quote: > Hi all, > I've bought a bunch of books lately on COM and ATL (Inside COM, > Effective COM, ATL Internals, the Grimes books, etc). That's a lot of > information on ATL and COM, but one thing I can't remember coming > across is information on ActiveX itself. I assume that an ActiveX > control is just a COM component that implements a number of specific > interfaces, or something along those lines, but I haven't found > anything detailing this. > For example, I've written 3 perfectly functional ActiveX components in > ATL for a Web site I'm coding. The code is pure pasta - a lot of it's > shared, and I've accomplished code reuse through cut-n-paste. I'd like > to put the shared code into a number of smaller COM components, and > then build my 3 larger controls from these. But I can't find anything > on how an ActiveX control would register COM components that it's > composed of. Do my high level ActiveXs have to 'manually' install > them? Do they low-level components have to be ActiveX? Is there an > 'IInstallable' interface or something like that? > Another issue: I'd like my ActiveX components to live from one Web > page to another. Who wouldn't? I don't know that I care about > persistence so much as I'd rather the DLLs weren't loaded and unloaded > all the time. Is there an IDontKillMe interface for this? > Beyond answering these questions, what I'm really after is a book > that'll let me answer them for myself. Actually a site would be better > - I've about blown my book budget already. > Thanks a lot, > Chris
Sun, 16 Nov 2003 10:44:21 GMT

Clueless Chr #3 / 5	(Slightly OT) General ActiveX information? Quote: >You won't find much about ActiveX because that is a fictitious term. >What it means is usually either ActiveX Controls or Automation. >(Some mean the COM DLLs produced by VB, BTW...) So don't bother >looking further... Hmmmmm. Always nice to know that a term doesn't really mean anything. I remember making the same discovery about Java Beans about 4 years ago - killing myself reading white papers & specs to answer the question "What IS a bean" - then determining that basically there's no such thing. I guess then that what I care about are ActiveX controls. I assume this is a term with some meaning, inasmuch as browsers are going to download & maniuplate them in some defined away. Is there somewhere to learn about this? Quote: >You can achieve code reuse on the source level as well - no need >to go binary. All you have to do is bundle all the top-level controls >in a single DLL (as MS did with the common controls for example). >Then the whole arsenal of C++ is at your disposal. I usually >recommend source code reuse over COM binary reuse. This sounds like a good idea that I would understand if I were better at this stuff. I think what you're saying is that I can go ahead and compile all my components - top level, low level, whatever - and link them in to one DLL. Is that so? If so, I guess there'd be some ugliness regarding DllGetClassObject, and all the Dll... functions for that matter. Or did you mean something else? Quote: >For the last question - you may be interested in the so called >Browser Helper Objects (BHO) in IE 4 and above. Search on MSDN >and you'll find some articles... Sounds neat. It looks like some of the work I'll be doing will be strictly IO, so I might be able to get into this. Thanks Alexander! - Chris
Mon, 17 Nov 2003 13:05:38 GMT

Christian McArdl #4 / 5	(Slightly OT) General ActiveX information? Quote: >I guess then that what I care about are ActiveX controls. I assume >this is a term with some meaning, inasmuch as browsers are going to >download & maniuplate them in some defined away. Is there somewhere to >learn about this? The ways in which ActiveX controls are used is basically defined by the standard OLE interfaces. Look at IViewObject, IOleObject, IOleInPlaceObject, IOleClientSite, IOleInPlaceSiteWindowless etc. Christian.
Mon, 17 Nov 2003 17:29:32 GMT

Alexander Nickolo #5 / 5	(Slightly OT) General ActiveX information? See inline. -- ===================================== Alexander Nickolov Microsoft MVP [VC], MCSD MVP VC FAQ: http://www.mvps.org/vcfaq ===================================== Quote: > >You won't find much about ActiveX because that is a fictitious term. > >What it means is usually either ActiveX Controls or Automation. > >(Some mean the COM DLLs produced by VB, BTW...) So don't bother > >looking further... > Hmmmmm. Always nice to know that a term doesn't really mean anything. > I remember making the same discovery about Java Beans about 4 years > ago - killing myself reading white papers & specs to answer the > question "What IS a bean" - then determining that basically there's no > such thing. > I guess then that what I care about are ActiveX controls. I assume > this is a term with some meaning, inasmuch as browsers are going to > download & maniuplate them in some defined away. Is there somewhere to > learn about this? Virtually every ATL book on the market explains ATL's support for ActiveX Controls (which is pretty decent BTW). If you are interested in knowing the real technology behind though, they'll fall short. The literature on the theory is very scarce. Read chapters 17-24 of "Inside OLE" and chapters 2-3 of "ActiveX Controls Inside Out". "Inside OLE" is on MSDN library, as for the other book - it's probably out of print too, so look at used books stores (or online :) ). (Note, the second books is mostly crap, but it does cover the technology quite decently in the two chapters I mentioned...) "Inside OLE" describes mostly OLE embedded/linked objects, but that is the root of ActiveX Controls (they are in-place activated OLE objects) whose former name was OLE Controls. You have to understand the concepts of hosting, siting, activation, persistence, etc in order to understand ActiveX Controls... Quote: > >You can achieve code reuse on the source level as well - no need > >to go binary. All you have to do is bundle all the top-level controls > >in a single DLL (as MS did with the common controls for example). > >Then the whole arsenal of C++ is at your disposal. I usually > >recommend source code reuse over COM binary reuse. > This sounds like a good idea that I would understand if I were better > at this stuff. I think what you're saying is that I can go ahead and > compile all my components - top level, low level, whatever - and link > them in to one DLL. Is that so? If so, I guess there'd be some > ugliness regarding DllGetClassObject, and all the Dll... functions for > that matter. Or did you mean something else? ATL is handling the object maintenance for you. You can have as many ATL objects in a single project as you want... (on a second thought, may be not _that_ many :)...) Quote: > >For the last question - you may be interested in the so called > >Browser Helper Objects (BHO) in IE 4 and above. Search on MSDN > >and you'll find some articles... > Sounds neat. It looks like some of the work I'll be doing will be > strictly IO, so I might be able to get into this. > Thanks Alexander! > - Chris
Wed, 19 Nov 2003 00:55:00 GMT

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