Professional Visual C++ 5 Activex/Com Control Programming

A book written by programmers, Professional Visual C++ ActiveX Intranet Programming is a guide to creating custom ActiveX components to allow an Intranet to publish non-standard data in a customized format, using controls that allow presentation of and interaction with that data in a completely custom way. The book is for experienced Visual C++ programmers who have used MFC in some depth.

Two of the most powerful, albeit complex, technologies available to the Visual C++ programmer are ActiveX and COM. This book is a tool for the professional developer and gets down and dirty on topics such as interoperability, remote execution, and ActiveX control development.

This work moves at a fast pace, illustrating techniques and discussing underlying technology. It dives into the details of the Component Object Model (COM) and how to write an ActiveX control from scratch or with the ActiveX Template Library. Next, the book lays out the construction of an ActiveX calendar control and tells how to make it work with legacy architectures using DCOM. The text then goes into a detailed discussion of DCOM, security, and ActiveX integration with intranets. Appendix A presents a nice architectural discussion of real-world business use of the Internet and closed intranets.

While this book focuses on a very specific type of C++ programming, it covers some of the least understood yet very enabling technologies in depth. If you consider yourself a strong C++ programmer and want to leverage ActiveX and COM to create sophisticated enterprise applications, you'll find this reference very useful.