Introduction

ActiveX Documents offer a way of using VB to add new features to Web Sites. Anything you can do with VB, you can perform on your web site. ActiveX supports most standard VB functions and methods, while adding a few new ones, like Hyperlink. ActiveX Documents is the VB version of JAVA, allowing for dynamic uses of HTML files, with very little knowledge of the Internet, that HTML or JAVA requires for the same features. ActiveX doesn't come without it's costs, but cab files, or Internet download files, take care of the distribution work for you. Unlike standard VB projects, you'll have to know the Classid of the Document in order to use it, but I'll cover how to get the id from the Registry.

In order for ActiveX to really be effective, you'll have to plan you're ActiveX control just like any program, and just like a normal program, a poorly designed ActiveX control can really affect how people view your work. You'll notice the example I used here could be done with standard HTML and the Command Button OCX, but I kept is simple so the code won't get in the way of how easy it really is to use ActiveX. You can use the ActiveX Document at the left to navigate this tutorial, and use it to download the Project Source and Compiled files, as-well-as a version of this Tutorial for off-line reading.