Dan Appleman's Developing COM/ActiveX Components With Visual Basic 6 (Paperback)

~ Daniel Appleman (Author)
Key Phrases: vbd file, listbox window, stituent controls, Visual Basic, Private Sub, Public Property Get (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Dan Appleman's Developing COM/ActiveX Components with Visual Basic 6 provides expert-mode knowledge of COM controls along with a guide to some of the latest features in Visual Basic. Extremely thorough and densely packed with advice, this book is just right for the programmer who needs to know all the details about Visual Basic controls.

The author begins with a tour of ActiveX and COM, along with some common myths about the technology. His introduction to COM technology is good, but Appleman also explains the pros and cons of COM objects used as in-process dynamic-link libraries (DLLs), standalone EXEs, and remote processes.

When it comes to Visual Basic, the author gives plenty of expert knowledge on class and project options. He covers how to design objects in Visual Basic up close and includes some hard-to-find material on collections and multithreading programming techniques. Appleman also provides an interesting example, a live stock-quote server.

A good deal of the book concentrates on writing ActiveX controls in Visual Basic. Although some developers use the Active Template Library (ATL) and Visual C++ for high performance, it's clear that Visual Basic can do a fine job of creating reusable controls. The author presents a soup-to-nuts tour of ActiveX control development, with due consideration of such topics as properties, events, property pages, and even security and signing. Final sections on ActiveX Documents and the new Visual Basic 6 WebClasses (for ASP development) show off Internet development. In all, this book offers much useful material on expert-mode topics geared to the more seasoned Visual Basic developer. --Richard Dragan

Product Description

Developing COM Components with Visual Basic 6 is a focused tutorial for learning component development. It teaches the reader the programming concepts and the technical steps needed to create ActiveX components. Dan Appleman is the author that Visual Basic programmer's recommend to their friends and colleagues. He consistently delivers on his promise to break through the confusion and hype surrounding Visual Basic and ActiveX. Appleman goes beyond the basics to show readers common pitfalls and practical solutions for key problems.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 858 pages
• Publisher: Sams (October 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1562765760
• ISBN-13: 978-1562765767
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #738,657 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #7 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Web Development > Programming > ActiveX
  #20 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Networking > Networks, Protocols & APIs > COM & DCOM
  #21 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Programming > APIs & Operating Environments > COM, DCOM & ATL

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally, A book that tells you what you need to know..., October 14, 1999

By A Customer

I believe Dan says it best..."understanding how something works can help you understand how to use it." I agree 100% Dan. This book is well balanced. It throughly explains, not only how to create ActiveX/COM Components, but the benefits and pitfalls of the different types of components. The examples in the book are great, unless your looking for an example to solve your problem. That's why I like this book. Dan is not trying to give examples to solve your problems. He is giving you examples so you can apply what you learn from his book to your problem. A way better method of teaching someone a new technology.

If you want to just get code to type in your application buy a different book. If you want to be able to apply this technology to your applications, buy this book today.

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book, May 24, 2000

By	Todd A. Blanchard (Knoxville, TN) - See all my reviews

Dan's book is definitely an authoritative work on the subject of COM/ActiveX development using Visual Basic. Even though the book is geared toward professional VB programmers, the material presented provides a well-rounded view of COM/ActiveX for most developers, providing them with the knowledge required to build professional, quality components.

While this book could be read by VB programmers at any level, the book does move a bit faster than most, suggesting that the reader should be familiar with some of the concepts beforehand in order to fully appreciate what Dan is writing about. This is not a limitation in any way. It was refreshing to read a book that got to the core issues quickly.

I appreciate the fact that Dan did not put much code into the printed material. He included only what was necessary to make his point. This left more room for detailed coverage of the relevant issues. Many times, books will be inundated with hard-to-follow code instead of relevant discussion of the information. This book was packed full of information.

I recommend Dan's book to others because I know it covers topics that are essential to VB programmers. COM/ActiveX issues will only become more important as Visual Basic continues to evolve into an Object-Oriented development tool.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Informative, but dense, September 23, 1999

By A Customer

There is a lot of useful information in this book, but if you're looking to glean the essence of COM and ActiveX, and quickly learn how to code ActiveX components, this is not the book for you. If you're interested in the nitty gritty details underlying this technology, you'll find it here.