Component Tools Guide

See Also

The Component Tools Guide is a suite of guides designed to help you create and use components that interoperate through the open, extensible standard on which ActiveX™ is based: the Component Object Model (COM).

By virtue of this standard, you can design applications from components that communicate through a common set of interfaces — and do it with the speed and ease of use you've become accustomed to with Microsoft® Visual Basic®.

Each of the sections included in the Component Tools Guide covers a different aspect of designing with components — from using existing software to creating your own, from ActiveX controls to DLLs, from the Visual Basic development environment to the Internet.

Parts

Using ActiveX Controls

An introduction to the ActiveX controls included with the Visual Basic Professional Edition. Start here for general information, scenarios of real-life uses, and code.
Creating ActiveX Components

A guide to creating ActiveX controls, ActiveX documents, and ActiveX code components. Includes introductory step by step chapters as well as in-depth design guides.
Extending the Visual Basic Environment with Add-Ins

A guide to using the Visual Basic extensibility object model to tailor the development environment to your unique needs. Use objects in the model to build add-ins that automate repetitive tasks, monitor the development environment for certain events, or perform complex tasks.
Accessing DLLs and the Windows API

A guide to enhancing functionality provided Visual Basic by calling functions in dynamic-link libraries (DLLs). Through DLLs, you can access the thousands of procedures that form the backbone of the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as routines written in other languages.
Building Internet Applications

An introduction to creating applications that can run on the Internet or an intranet, presenting HTML pages inside forms-based applications, and deploying these applications and other ActiveX components on the Web.