How to Weave ActiveX into Your Website

The ActiveX Control Pad

by Michael Risse

You have probably heard a lot about ActiveX. But how can developers marry the vision of ActiveX—a new generation of more active, exciting, and useful Web experiences—with the open ActiveX technologies? The answer is the ActiveX Control Pad. This utility is available now, it’s free, and it provides the basic functionality you need to incorporate ActiveX technologies into your Web site.

Let’s say you are starting with an HTML document created using the Internet Assistant for Word or Microsoft FrontPage.

Inserting ActiveX controls

The ActiveX Control Pad makes it easy to insert ActiveX controls—reusable software components—into your HTML code. You can use either the standard set of controls that ships with the ActiveX Control Pad (everything from command buttons to list boxes to image display), or you can use controls from over 600 third-party vendors. Once the control is inserted, you visually set properties of the control in a control window or in the property window (see Figure 1). Although Java applets are not supported in the first release, they will be in future versions, so you will be able to use either COM-based or Java-based controls.

Adding ActiveX scripting

Now you want to enable the ActiveX controls to interact with each other, or with the user. You can activate controls by adding Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript) or JavaScript code to your HTML page using the Script Wizard. This intuitive tool makes adding code as easy as pointing and clicking on events and actions. You can see the results either in VBScript or JavaScript or in terms of the events that you have chosen. You can even add "autorun" code that executes as soon as the Web page is loaded.

Advanced control layout

As the design of your Web pages becomes more complex, you’ll want to add more complex interfaces and place your controls precisely. Today’s HTML standards (and therefore, today’s Internet browsers) do not support rich, control-based interfaces, but the HTML Layout Control provides an advanced look at new HTML standards that enable cascading style sheets, tables, and rich frameset support as defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). You can use the HTML Layout Control within the ActiveX Control Pad to create more compelling images and designs; soon, this functionality will be built right into the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser.

When you are done extending your Web page with the ActiveX Control Pad, view the results in Internet Explorer 3.0 (download it from http://www.microsoft.com/ie) or in other browsers that support ActiveX controls and ActiveX scripting. And now you’re activated.

Where to download

Download the ActiveX Control Pad from http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/author/cpad/ and the HTML Layout Control from http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/author/layout/ in the Site Builder Workshop. You can also visit sample Web sites and download a tutorial and Help file. The beta release of the ActiveX Control Pad runs on Windows 95 and the Beta 2 release of Windows NT 4.0.

Michael Risse is a Group Product Manager in Microsoft’s Internet Platform and Tools Division, but you can’t reach him right now. He just got hitched and is honeymooning in the wilds of British Columbia, pursuing the wily rainbow trout.

This intuitive tool makes adding code as easy as pointing and clicking

As the design of your Web pages becomes more complex, you’ll want to add more complex interfaces and place your controls precisely