Reusing Components in Your Project

The Visual Component Manager provides several ways to reuse files and components in your Visual Basic, Visual J++, or Visual InterDev project, depending on the type of item selected.

You can also reuse components, documents, specifications, and other items in VC++ or other programming environments, although you will not directly interact with these tools. In these cases, the components are copied from the Visual Component Manager database to your local hard disk, and Component Object Model (COM) components are registered in your system registry. You will have to add them to the VC++ or other language project in the ways typically available for those environments.

Some typical examples of reusing components are included in the following list.

To add a new project to your Visual Basic project group

1. With Visual Basic running, locate and select the desired component item in the Visual Component Manager explorer or contents pane.
   
   
2. On the shortcut menu, click Add to Project Group.

To add a new project to your Visual J++ or Visual InterDev solution

1. With Visual J++ or Visual InterDev running, locate and select the desired component item in the Visual Component Manager explorer or contents pane.
   
   
2. On the shortcut menu, click Install on this computer.

To add a new ActiveX^® Control to your project

1. With your development environment running, locate and select the desired component item in the Visual Component Manager explorer or contents pane.
   
   
2. On the shortcut menu, click Add to Toolbox.

To add other COM objects to your project

1. With your development environment running, locate and select the desired component item in the Visual Component Manager explorer or contents pane.
   
   
2. On the shortcut menu, click Add to Project.

To add a new form to your Visual Basic project

1. With Visual Basic running, locate and select the desired component item in the Visual Component Manager explorer or contents pane.
   
   
2. On the shortcut menu, click Add to Project.

To use a published COM component in Visual C++ or other environments

1. Locate and select the desired component item in the Visual Component Manager explorer or contents pane.
   
   
2. On the shortcut menu, click Install on this computer.

To use other components in Visual C++ or other environments

1. Locate and select the desired component item in the Visual Component Manager explorer or contents pane.
   
   
2. On the shortcut menu, click Save to disk.

A shortcut method of adding most items to your project is to double-click on the item's icon in the Visual Component Manager contents pane.