The explorer pane displays a hierarchical folder view of Visual Component Manager's organization. This organization contains the three kinds of elements in the following list.
Visual Component Manager uses the Microsoft Repository to store and retrieve components. It can create and access two separate kinds of repository databases: Microsoft Access (.mdb) for local repositories and SQL Server for shared (team) repositories. When Visual Component Manager is first installed, it creates a Microsoft Access database on your local machine.
You can create or open additional repository databases of either type, using the Repository command in the shortcut menu.
Visual Component Manager organizes the components and other files it contains into folders. Each folder can contain both items (components and files) and subfolders. There are folders for each supported item type in the local repository database, and you can create additional folders by clicking New Folder on the shortcut menu.
Individual components and other supported files are the lowest-level items stored in the repository database. In order to know how to load, reference, and otherwise manage the components it stores, Visual Component Manager categorizes each item by type. The item type determines the behind-the-scenes "handler" used by Visual Component Manager to perform various operations on the component item.
The types of items currently supported by Visual Component Manager include those listed in the following table.
| Item types | File extensions |
| COM Server | .dll, .exe |
| COM Library | .dll |
| Standard Binaries | .dll, .exe |
| ActiveX® Control | .ocx |
| Active Document | .vbd |
| Visual Basic Project | .vbp |
| Visual Basic Project Group | .vbg |
| Visual Basic Sample Project | .vbp |
| Form Template | .frm |
| MDI Form Template | .frm |
| Class Template | .cls |
| Code Procedure Template | .bac |
| Control Set Template | .frm |
| Menu Template | .frm |
| Property Page Template | .pag |
| User Control Template | .ctl |
| User Document Template | .dob |
| Database Connection | .cls |
| Visual J++™ Project | .vjp |
| Java Class | .class |
| Java Applet | .java |
| HTML File | .htm, .html |
| Visual Model | .mdl |
| Documents/Misc. File | Any file name |
For More Information For more information about the operations you can perform on repository databases, folders, and items, see Visual Component Manager Common Tasks. For a description of Visual Component Manager commands, see Visual Component Manager User Interface Reference.