Dr. GUI's Rx…Get More Active

Here are a few Dr. GUI tips for patients who program for the Internet:

· Take a look at ActiveX controls. Note that there's a whole range of them—from timers and labels to animation viewers. And you can use 'em without programming. They should make Internet client programming about as easy as using, say, Visual Basic—and at least as fun.

· To use these controls, check out the ActiveX Control Pad—which you can download from http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/author/cpad. It's an HTML authoring program that makes using ActiveX controls a snap. No more typing GUIDs by hand. The main feature, in conjunction with the way-cool HTML Layout Control, allows you to lay out controls exactly—you can overlap them and control their Z-order. And you can modify the layout interactively using scripting. (These controls can be nonrectangular and/or transparent, too.) Check out the demos at http://microsoft.com/ie/most/howto/layout.htm. Dr. GUI likes the "Mr. ActiveX Eggplant Head" best.

· For connecting up controls, the ActiveX Control Pad even has a scripting wizard that uses your choice of VBScript or JavaScript. Although it's been called " 'Visual Notepad' on steroids," Dr. GUI thinks it's more like Visual Basic crossed with Microsoft Publisher.

· Want to write a browser? The Internet Explorer 3.0 browser object model makes it easy: Your Visual Basic browser consists of an edit control, a button, a Web browser control, and one line of Visual Basic.