ActiveX Guide

Useful ActiveX Tools

Basic Tools (for most of the stuff here)

  • A decent text editor, the Notepad tool that comes with Windows is OK although, Web Edit is a very good .html editor as it has shortcuts that insert a large number of .html tags automatically.

  • The ActiveX Control Pad. For using pre-built ActiveX controls, the controls intrinsic to Windows and the ActiveX controls that come with Internet Explorer. The ActiveX Control Pad can be obtained directly from the Microsoft Site Builder Network and also many ActiveX books have the ActiveX Control Pad available with them.

  • A decent graphics editor. You will probably an editor capable of handling transparent .gif files and .jpg (JPEG) files. The best graphics editors are Paint Shop Pro 4 and Microsoft Image Composer (capable of handling 216 colour .gif files) Paint Shop Pro is available (in a time limited form) on many magazine cover CDs, Microsoft Image Composer is available (again in a time limeted form) from the Microsoft Site Builder Network and also as part of the Microsoft Frontpage product.

    Advanced Tools (for those of you with a little more patience)

  • Microsoft Visual Basic Control Creation Edition. This is freely (barring download times) available from Microsoft. Also available on a number of CDs available with ActiveX publications and has been featured on a number of magazine cover CDs.

  • ActiveX Software Development Kit (SDK). Available directly from Microsoft as either the ActiveX SDK or the Platform SDK. Also available on many ActiveX publications cover CDs. It contains all the tools necessary for signing .cab files, creating ActiveX controls, creating License Packages and containing documentation for ActiveX, Visual Basic Scripting and Internet Explorer.

  • Microsoft IE Script Debugger. Very useful for debugging both VBScript and Java/JScipt especially as neither language has inbuilt debugging methods. I have only ever seen this available from the Microsoft Site Builder Network.

  • You could invest in. The Visual Basic 5 Full Product or Visual Basic 4 (32bit Edition). ActiveX controls can also be created with Visual C++ (patched Version 4.2b) and also with the new Delphi 3 (or Delphi '97) product.