| Platform SDK: Active Directory, ADSI, and Directory Services |
Users of Active Directory can customize it to suit their unique requirements. The user interface can also be changed to suit their needs. Active Directory permits the schema to be modified by creating new classes and attributes or modifying existing classes. Display Specifiers can be modified to reflect the new user interface elements that schema modifications require.
A Display-Specifier object is created for the new class. If multiple locales are present, new Display-Specifier objects are created for each supported locale. If the new class is derived from a parent class and the parent class already has an acceptable UI, that UI is specified and additional pages, menu items, and display names can be added for the new attributes. Otherwise, a completely new UI is created and specified. In either case, a new icon and class display name can be used.
Note that a new class that inherits from an existing class does not inherit the parent class's display specifier. If you want the new class to use some or all of the parent class's display specifier properties, you must create a new display specifier for the new class and copy the properties you want from the parent class's display specifier to the new display specifier. This must be done for all locales for which you want to use the parent class's display specifier properties.