Lesson 7: ActiveX Design-Time Controls | Microsoft Windows Architecture for Developers Training Kit

Using Design-time Controls in Visual InterDev

You can insert design-time controls the same way you insert other ActiveX controls ”by choosing Insert ActiveX Control from the Insert menu or the file editor's shortcut menu. However, when you close the design-time control Object Editor, the control writes server script and HTML into your file.

Microsoft Visual InterDev includes the following design-time controls:

Control Name	Description
Data Command	Writes server script that executes a command such as a query against a database.
Data Range Header	Writes server script that creates an ADO Recordset object using a query or stored procedure that you specify. It also begins a loop to move through all the records in the Recordset, and can be configured to display single pages of records at a time.
Data Range Footer	Used in conjunction with a Data Range Header control, writes the server script that finishes the loop to move through all the records in the Recordset.
Include	Allows the contents of a file to be inserted into an Active Server Page before the page is processed .
Data Connection	Contains a collection of information required to access a specific database. The collection includes a data source name (DSN) and logon information. Data connections are stored in a project and are activated when the user performs an action that requires access to the database.

As with all ActiveX controls, design-time ActiveX controls must be installed on any computer that will run them. Visual InterDev installs all intrinsic design-time controls during setup. Any third-party controls must be installed on the target machine as well, using a standard setup program, batch file, or Regsvr32.exe.

You can author your own design-time controls using Visual Basic, or you can use existing ActiveX controls, as long as they exist on the design-time client computer.

Note
For more information on creating custom design-time controls, see the Design-Time Controls SDK at www.microsoft.com/workshop/prog/sdk/dtctrl/.