Chapter 8 -- Using ActiveX Controls

Chapter 8

Microsoft Visual Basic (VB) was introduced in 1991 and has proven to be a wildly popular and successful application development system for Microsoft Windows. Part of its success is attributable to its open-ended nature. The 16-bit versions of VB (versions 1 through 3) supported Visual Basic controls (VBXs), ready-to-run software components that VB developers could buy or write themselves. VBXs became the center of a whole industry, and pretty soon there were hundreds of them. At Microsoft, the Microsoft Foundation Class (MFC) team figured out a way for Microsoft Visual C++ programmers to use VBXs in their programs, too.

The VBX standard, which was highly dependent on the 16-bit segment architecture, did not make it to the 32-bit world. Now ActiveX Controls (formerly known as OLE controls, or OCXs) are the industrial-strength replacement for VBXs based on Microsoft COM technology. ActiveX controls can be used by application developers in both VB and Visual C++ 6.0. While VBXs were written mostly in plain C, ActiveX controls can be written in C++ with the help of the MFC library or with the help of the ActiveX Template Library (ATL).

This chapter is not about writing ActiveX controls; it's about using them in a Visual C++ application. The premise here is that you can learn to use ActiveX controls without knowing much about the Component Object Model (COM) on which they're based. After all, Microsoft doesn't require that VB programmers be COM experts. To effectively write ActiveX controls, however, you need to know a bit more, starting with the fundamentals of COM. Consider picking up a copy of Adam Denning's ActiveX Controls Inside Out (Microsoft Press, 1997) if you're serious about creating ActiveX controls. Of course, knowing more ActiveX Control theory won't hurt when you're using the controls in your programs. Chapter 24, Chapter 25, and Chapter 30 of this book are a good place to start.