Going Beyond Forms - Using Objects

Using Objects

Whether you use an ActiveX™ Control (formerly called an OLE control) or a Java object, Microsoft® Visual Basic® Scripting Edition and Microsoft Internet Explorer version 3.0 handle it the same way. If you're using Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 and have installed the controls available in the ActiveX™ Gallery, you can see the code on this page in use.

You include an object using the <OBJECT> tags and set its initial property values using <PARAM> tags. If you're a Visual Basic programmer, you'll recognize that the <PARAM> tags are just like setting initial properties for a control on a form. For example, the following set of <OBJECT> and <PARAM> tags adds the ActiveX™ Label control to a page:

<OBJECT
	classid="clsid:99B42120-6EC7-11CF-A6C7-00AA00A47DD2"
	id=lblActiveLbl
	width=250
	height=250
	align=left
	hspace=20
	vspace=0
>
<PARAM NAME="Angle" VALUE="90">
<PARAM NAME="Alignment" VALUE="2">
<PARAM NAME="BackStyle" VALUE="0">
<PARAM NAME="Caption" VALUE="A Simple Desultory Label">
<PARAM NAME="FontName" VALUE="Arial">
<PARAM NAME="FontSize" VALUE="20">
<PARAM NAME="FontBold" VALUE="1">
<PARAM NAME="FrColor" VALUE="0">
</OBJECT>

You can get and set properties, and invoke methods just as with any of the form controls. The following code, for example, includes <FORM> controls you can use to manipulate two of the label control's properties:

<FORM NAME="LabelControls">
<INPUT TYPE="TEXT" NAME="txtNewText" SIZE=25>
<INPUT TYPE="BUTTON" NAME="cmdChangeIt" VALUE="Change Text">
<INPUT TYPE="BUTTON" NAME="cmdRotate" VALUE="Rotate Label">
</FORM>

With the form defined, an event procedure for the cmdChangeIt button changes the label text:

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="VBScript">
<!--
Sub cmdChangeIt_onClick
	Dim TheForm
	Set TheForm = Document.LabelControls
	lblActiveLbl.Caption = TheForm.txtNewText.Value
End Sub
-->
</SCRIPT>

The code qualifies references to controls and values inside the forms just as in the simple validation example.

Several ActiveX™ Controls are available from the ActiveX™ Gallery for use with Internet Explorer 3.0. You can find complete information about the properties, methods, and events there, as well as the class identifiers (CLSID) for the controls. You can find more information about the <OBJECT> tag on the Internet Explorer Objects page.

Note Previous releases of Internet Explorer 3.0 required curly braces ({}) around the classid attribute and did not conform to the W3C specification. Using curly braces with the current release will generate a "This page uses an outdated version of the <OBJECT> tag" message.

© 1996 by Microsoft Corporation.