Good candidates for ActiveX controls include instrument drivers, communication interfaces, unique buttons, and bit-manipulation functions. Once you design the control, you simply drag it from the toolbox and drop it into your application.Īs you become proficient at developing controls, you'll quickly discover plenty of applications for them.
With VB5, you don't have to be a programmer to make use of ActiveX controls instead, the Control Interface and Property Page wizards walk you through the steps of creating a full-featured control. Prior to VB5, ActiveX (or OCX) control development was strictly the domain of seasoned C/C++ programmers.
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ActiveX controls promote software reuse, because once you have a control, you can use it in any application. (ActiveX controls were known as OLE/OCX custom controls under VB4 and were known as VBX controls under VB3.) By using ActiveX controls with Microsoft Office, you can control instruments directly from Word, Access, or Excel.
You also can add custom controls, called ActiveX controls, to any ActiveX control-compliant language such as Visual C++, Delphi, PowerBuilder, VEE, LabView, and TestPoint. Custom controls also give engineers access to hardware such as data-acquisition boards. Typical controls for engineers include charts, knobs, sliders, and temperature scales. Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 (VB5) lets you add custom controls that extend the language.