ActiveX

[Zen]

Hello.

Ive never used activeX before but i know they can be used on websites, such as the windows update and various other things. Ive seen talk of ActiveX on here and on the IBasic forums. So not knowing much about ActiveX, if Aurora does eventually support AcitveX, will that mean we can create our own ActiveX controls or just use others?

Thanks
Lewis

[Ionic Wind Support Team]

Both.

Paul.

[Zen]

Excellent. Id be quiet interested in doing some ActiveX stuff.

Ill have to do some research about them untill Aurora is ready to make them

Lewis

[ThadMiller]

Big issue with using ActiveX on web sites is you're then limiting clients to IE only.

[Zen]

Yes thats true.

Ive been making websites for a few years now and ive managed without them so i dont think ill change my ways now. It would just be for my own learning purposes.

Lewis

[Steven Picard]

I have dozens of professional ActiveX controls that I use in VB.  These would take years to recreate and would be highly impracticle to do so.  I am not sure if some of you think ActiveX is an Internet (IE) technology or not but ActiveX controls are absolutely useful.  If you want to check out what kind of ActiveX controls are out there you can go here and browse their on-line catalog:
http://www.componentsource.com/Catalog.asp?fl=A210&sc=CS&bc=A100~A210&ul=en

[ThadMiller]

Definitely ActiveX is useful... I'm a long time VB programmer and have been using ActiveX controls for years.  I really look forward to being able to use/program them in Aurora for windows programming.  My comment was simply that using an ActiveX control on a web page means that it will only be usable by people browsing with Microsoft Interner Explorer (IE), it won't work with Mozilla, Firefox, Netscape, etc.

I guess I'm one of those developers sitting in the grey area between open source and the evil empire.  I love using ActiveX controls in windows programming (however, I don't want huge run-times that VB includes, but don't want to go through the learning curve of C/C++), but to me the internet is supposed to be open to all (browser independant).  A page should look the same whether the user is on IE, Firefox, even Opera, and it shouldn't matter whether they're using windows, a mac, or some flavor of linux.  There will obviously be small differences between the browsers (especially IE, since they decided to diverge from W3C standards), but to include features that limit your users is not a good idea.

Sorry for the rantings... I like windows (mostly) and windows programming (mostly), but I actually avoid sites that don't work in Firefox.

[Zen]

No i am to believe from what i read last night that ActiveX is multi purposed. There is the use of webcontrols, plugins like flash. Then there is the the part for controls for VB and other such languages by microsoft, but i didnt read into that as that is not the part that interested me.

Lewis

[Steven Picard]

will only be usable by people browsing with Microsoft Interner Explorer (IE), it won't work with Mozilla, Firefox, Netscape, etc.

I totally agree.  ActiveX controls on a web page is a big "no-no" and I think it was a bad idea to begin with on Microsoft's part.

Just as an FYI (I don't think many people know about this,) if you don't want to install and register an ActiveX on the end-user's machine you can use something like MoleBox (www.molebox.com).  It will bundle and protect all your dependencies into one file, including ActiveX.

I would like to see Aurora enable us to create self-contained UserControls that behave like an ActiveX (draw it on the screen in the form designer, set some properties) but have it as an obj or elf file (so it would be cross-platform.)  Hmmm.... cross-platform UserControls would be cool. 

[Zen]

What is the difference between an ActiveX control and a DLL file? I opened one in PE Explorer and it has all the same imports, exports, reources etc. To me it looked just like a normal DLL. Is it something to do with when it is actually compiled?

Lewis

[Steven Picard]

You were probably looking at an ActiveX DLL which is the same as an ActiveX OCX.

[Ionic Wind Support Team]

ActiveX/OCX is based on COM/OLE.  So it's not just a DLL with functions, but has class interfaces.

[Shannara]

I'm putting up my hands for a keen interest in this. I am also (among other things) working on the interface for the msscript.ocx control. It provides basic and java scripting for applications, VB and C++ (rare), but quite useful when porting over old applications.

[Zen]

I would not know where to start but I would like to see how to make an activeX control in Aurora. Would also be a good example I guess.

Lewis