Design-time Control Glossary

ActiveX control

A COM component, typically with a user interface, designed as a lightweight in-process component that is self-registering.

best match

The choice that most closely matches the selection criteria specified in a filter.

choice

A unit of information published or subscribed to by a design-time control. See Choice object.

collection

An object that contains a set of related objects. An object's position in the collect can vary because its position can change whenever a change occurs in the collection.

design-time control

An ActiveX control designed to generate runtime text and insert it into a document while the document it being edited. The control is "live" only at design-time when the document is open in the editor.

DTC

Design-time control

dynamic choice

Any choice created using the GetAvailableChoices method or during the OnRebind method. These choices are temporary as they only exist while the Choices engine compares them with subscriptions. If a dynamic choice matches a subscriber's filter, then the choice is bound to the subscriber's sink and remains available as long as it is bound.

empty string

Condition of a string property that indicates the property's value is nothing and that only the value nothing matches the string. See also: no-value state

IEnumVARIANT

A dispatch interface that provides methods that control actions on a object collection. This interface is an extension of the IUnknown interface for COM objects. See the Platform SDK documentation for more information.

interface

An array of pointers to functions or a list of entry points to defined routines that defines a contract between an object and its user. Implementation of an interface means that ActiveX or OLE supplies code that performs the actions expected of each of the member functions in the interface.

no-value state

Condition of a string property indicating that any value for the property is acceptable. See also: empty string.

null string

A string whose length is zero and, therefore, does not contain any characters.

object expression

An expression that specifies a particular object and can include any of the object's containers. For example, an application can have an Application object that contains a Document object that contains a Text object.

rebind

The process performed by the Choices Engine when it enumerates all of the choices published by DTC98 objects and connects the choices with the appropriate consumers. This process should take place after any change that might cause the choices consumed by some control to change.

static choice

Any choice created using the AddChoice method. These choices exist until the DTC is deleted or the hosting document is closed.