Here you learn to create three types of components Visual Basic has to offer: ActiveX code components (formerly known as OLE servers), ActiveX controls (formerly OLE controls), and ActiveX documents. (This book is not devoted to the additional ActiveX custom controls that come with the Professional Edition.)
Since ActiveX is the old OLE technology with additional Internet capabilities, it's logical to go beyond components to reach out to the Internet. So the second half of Chapter 3 and the entire Chapter 4 are devoted to the Internet. The coverage of Internet-related items, including HTML and VBScript, are less than thorough. A few books are planned to provide more in-depth coverage. See the backside of the cover page for a list of these forthcoming books.
Each chapter starts by explaining how to do things and ends with some lengthy examples. A companion disk contains the source files for all the lengthier programs. The text provides the file name at the beginning of each lengthy code listing. These files are located in the following five directories:
1Code
2Controls
3Doc
4Script
Tutorials
These directories are closely tied to the book's chapter numbers and titles. So if you want to access a file in Chapter 2, for example, go to the specified file name in the 2Controls directory.
Each chapter contains 20 Practice questions. All the answers are supplied at the end of the questions. The complex and lengthy source files are also available on disk, in the directories shown above.
Each chapter includes 20 Drill questions. The answers are provided at the end of the questions. You can also play with their corresponding interactive tutorials stored in the Tutorials directory. These tutorials are written in JavaScript and VBScript. They can be run by Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator. Read the Readme.txt file in the root directory for details.
2. ActiveX Controls
A. Overview
B. A Timer Control
C. UserControl Events and Life Cycles
D. UserControl Methods and Properties
E. Control Interface Wizard
F. A Dice Control
G. Supplying a Bitmap for a Control
H. Coding the Dice Control
I. Handling Events
J. Property Issues
K. Life Cycles Revisited
L. Property Pages
M. Magic Square
N. Bridge Game
O. Clock Control
P. Calendar Control and Control Array
3. ActiveX Documents
A. Overview
B. A Document Example
C. Accessory Files
D. Life Cycle and Attributes
E. Multiple Documents and Data Persistence
F. ActiveX Document Migration Wizard
G. Creating a Web Browser
H. Windows Registry and Component IDs
I. Interface Issues
a. Component and Member IDs
b. Procedure Attributes
J. Packaging Components for the Internet
K. Inserting and Scripting Controls
L. Dice Game
M. Interactive Tutorial
N. Internet Tutorial
4. The Internet, HTML, and VBScript
A. Internet Overview
B. World Wide Web (WWW) and Browsers
C. Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
a. Editing and Display Text
b. Basic Structure
c. Document Formatting
d. Anchors and Hyperlinks
e. Colors and Multimedia
D. Controls, Forms, and CGI Scripts
E. VBScript
a. Comparing Visual Basic and VBScript
b. Functions and Procedures
c. Event Handling
d. Calculator Script
e. Error Handling
f. Handling Arrays
g. Calculating Mortgage Payment
h. Point-and-Click Calculator
i. Form Elements
F. Tables
G. Frames and This Book's Web Site
H. CAI Tutorial
I. Getting More Help
Appendix
A. Component File Names
Index