Technical Notes

This section contains technical notes on the Active Desktop and Active Channels.

The Active Desktop

The Active Desktop in Windows 98 is built from two separate layers. The transparent icon layer exposes all the user’s existing desktop shortcuts, and the background HTML layer hosts all Active Desktop items. The HTML layer is described by a single, local HTML file called Desktop.htm that is created and edited automatically by Windows 98. This file contains the following:

HTML tags that represent each Active Desktop item. Each Active Desktop item consists of a single HTML tag with arbitrary x- and y-positions. The HTML tag for an Active Desktop item can be an image (<IMG>) tag, a floating frame (<IFRAME>) tag, or an object (<OBJECT>) tag, and is generated automatically by Windows 98. The floating frame is the most commonly used approach, because it neatly encapsulates an entire arbitrary HTML document that can contain anything the author desires. In either case, there is a single URL that points to the actual content.
An ActiveX control that enables moving and resizing of the Active Desktop items and helps manage the list of items.
Any other static HTML that the user wants to have in the background. By default, this is just a reference to the user’s chosen wallpaper, which is exposed as the background watermark for the HTML page.

A Sample CDF File

The following is an example of a simple CDF file for a sub-channel (a channel within a channel):

<?XML version="1.0"?>

<CHANNEL
    HREF="http://www.microsoft.com/ie/ie40/">

    <TITLE>Dynamic HTML Channel</TITLE>
    <LOGO HREF="http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/prog/ie4/channels/dhtml.ico" STYLE="icon" />
    <LOGO

HREF="http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/prog/ie4/channels/dhtml.gif" STYLE="image" />

    <ITEM HREF="http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/author/dhtml/">
        <TITLE>Microsoft Dynamic HTML</TITLE>
        <ABSTRACT>Site Builder Network articles on Dynamic HTML 
        </ABSTRACT>
    </ITEM>

    <ITEM HREF="http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/prog/ie4/">
        <TITLE>Internet Explorer 4 Technologies</TITLE>
        <ABSTRACT>Site Builder Network articles on Internet Explorer 4 
        </ABSTRACT>
    </ITEM>
    <CHANNEL HREF="http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/archives/">
        <TITLE>Site Builder Networks archives</TITLE>
        <ABSTRACT>Site Builder Network articles from the last 6 
        months</ABSTRACT>

    <ITEM HREF="http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/archives/asp/">
        <TITLE>Active Server pages</TITLE>
        <ABSTRACT>Site Builder Network articles on Active Server 
        Pages</ABSTRACT>
    </ITEM>

    <ITEM HREF="http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/archives/SQL/">
        <TITLE>Building a SQL backend for your Intranet</TITLE>
        <ABSTRACT>Site Builder Network articles on Intranets and SQL 
        databases</ABSTRACT>
    </ITEM>
</CHANNEL>

</CHANNEL>

Additional Resources



For more information about	See this resource


Internet Explorer	Microsoft Internet Explorer Resource Kit http://www.microsoft.com/ie/corp/ http://ieak.microsoft.com/
FrontPage 98	http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/
Active Desktop Gallery	http://www.microsoft.com/ie/ie40/gallery/
Active Desktop items	http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/prog/ie4/
Java applets and ActiveX controls	http://www.microsoft.com/java/ http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/prog/