Essence of OLE With Active X, The: A Programmer's Workbook [Paperback]

David S. Platt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 27, 1996

57086-1 "The Essence of OLE puts a training workshop in your hands, allowing you to explore and experiment with OLE and ActiveX in the context of modern development tools. David Platt teaches you to swim in the shallow end of the pool while always encouraging you to challenge yourself in deeper waters." Kraig Brockschmidt, Author of Inside OLE Finally, OLE explained the right way-simply, elegantly, and consistently. OLE has a reputation for being hard to learn. But it isn't-not if you take the time to understand OLE's underlying principles, and learn OLE techniques one step at a time. That's where The Essence of OLE' comes in. It's the first self-study OLE guide and workbook that actually makes OLE easy to understand-and helps you become comfortable using it. With The Essence of OLE, you'll start with the simplest OLE applications, and then build on what you learn, one technique at a time, in easy, bite-size chunks. Along the way, you'll discover OLE's internal elegance and consistency. You'll also see both the underlying API and the prefabricated functionality provided by the MFC.Through masterfully explained examples, you'll learn about: *The Component Object Model at the heart of OLE. *Sourcing and using data objects, data transfer and drag-and-drop techniques. *OLE automation, including both controllers and servers. *ActiveX controls and their containers. *OLE on the Internet, including ActiveX Scripting. You'll also get 10 megabytes of working sample code you can cut and paste into your own applications-code that can help you jumpstart virtually any OLE development project! As OLE and ActiveX play an ever-greater role in both desktop and Internet applications, strong OLE skills are becoming even more important. There's simply no better way for Windows developers to get those skills than with The Essence of OLE.'

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

“The Essence of OLE puts a training workshop in your hands, allowing you to explore and experiment with OLE and ActiveX in the context of modern development tools. David Platt teaches you to swim in the shallow end of the pool while always encouraging you to challenge yourself in deeper waters.” Kraig Brockschmidt, Author of Inside OLE

Finally, OLE explained the right way—simply, elegantly, and consistently.

OLE has a reputation for being hard to learn. But it isn't-not if you take the time to understand OLE's underlying principles, and learn OLE techniques one step at a time. That's where The Essence of OLE' comes in. It's the first self-study OLE guide and workbook that actually makes OLE easy to understand—and helps you become comfortable using it.

With The Essence of OLE, you'll start with the simplest OLE applications, and then build on what you learn, one technique at a time, in easy, bite-size chunks. Along the way, you'll discover OLE's internal elegance and consistency. You'll also see both the underlying API and the prefabricated functionality provided by the MFC. Through masterfully explained examples, you'll learn about:

• The Component Object Model at the heart of OLE.
• Sourcing and using data objects, data transfer and drag-and-drop techniques.
• OLE automation, including both controllers and servers.
• ActiveX controls and their containers.
• OLE on the Internet, including ActiveX Scripting.

You'll also get 10 megabytes of working sample code you can cut and paste into your own applications—code that can help you jumpstart virtually any OLE development project!

As OLE and ActiveX play an ever-greater role in both desktop and Internet applications, strong OLE skills are becoming even more important. There's simply no better way for Windows developers to get those skills than with The Essence of OLE.'

About the Author

DAVID S. PLATT is President of Rolling Thunder Computing, Inc., and an instructor in Computer Science for the Harvard University Extension School. He is also the author of The Win32 API from Scratch (Prentice-Hall).

Product Details

• Paperback: 408 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR (November 27, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0135708621
• ISBN-13: 978-0135708620
• Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 8.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,171,607 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Re-titling of old book, June 19, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Essence of OLE With Active X, The: A Programmer's Workbook (Paperback)

When I started reading this book, I thought it looked pretty good. Then I started to see goofy assertions about how the author thought C++ should be coded (which were downright wrong). It makes me mad when people assume that the way to program in C++ is the way MFC is programmed. This book perpertuates this idea. Telling people that multiple inheritance in bad has no place in this book. If the author does not understand the proper use of this C++ feature, then they should not discuss it. It is hardly pertinent to the subject in the first place.

I also noticed that the book was originally OLE stuff that has been re-purposed for ActiveX.

There are nuggets of information if you want to wade through this book though.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Understanding OLE/Active X is finally possible., January 30, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Essence of OLE With Active X, The: A Programmer's Workbook (Paperback)

If you're like me, and you're having a hard time deciphering almost any book related to Microsoft OLE, you'll be interested in the book, "The Essence of OLE with Active X." For those of you whose eyelids do not turn inside-out when trying to read traditional OLE/Active X literature, you can safely avoid reading "The Essence of OLE with Active X." . Here's a test. Try to read the following statement: "...EnumCache enumerates the present cached formats through IEnumSTATData, as in IDAtaObject:EnumDADvise. The pAdvSink field of the enumerated structures holds IAdviseSink pointers to sinks implemented in the cache that are connected to a local or remote orInproc object." Sound familiar? Check your eyelids. I'll leave it to you to guess in which OLE book I actually found this statement. As a hint, I will just tell you that it is the one that EVERYONE has on their desks, looks impressive, weighs between 14-15 lbs, still looks BRAND NEW on everybody's bookshelf, makes numerous references to Koalas.... For those who have almost given up on books on OLE, Active X, COM, and other OLE "buzz words", there is an author, David S. Platt, who excels at explaining things "for the rest of us." He assumes some limited knowledge of Windows programming using C/C ++, and possibly that the reader has a least attempted to read some of the unreadable, worthless pablum currently documenting OLE technologies, but assumes nothing else. "The Essence of OLE with Active X" is a must-read for anyone who needs to get serious about learning the fundamentals of OLE and Active X technologies. It doesn't dull the brain like most "how-to" books, yet it is rooted enough in the real world that it doesn't lose you like most "serious" books either. I already recommend it to other people working at Microsoft. Believe me, it is one of the easiest way to make a lot of friends fast

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent book for the beginner, May 6, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Greenville, S.C.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Essence of OLE With Active X, The: A Programmer's Workbook (Paperback)

David has done us all a great service in writing this book. His clear explanations and relevant code samples speak volumes. If you've never read anything about OLE, this is the place to start. I especially liked how he shows the pure OLE way to do things and then compares that with using MFC to do the same thing. He also points out many of the gotcha's when using MFC. His writing style is clear and his sense of humour is entertaining. All I can say is get it. It's definitely worth it!