Setting Properties with OLE Automation

Table of Contents.

1. Introduction
2. How it works
3. Control interface
4. Source interface
5. User interface
6. Environment
7. Acknowledgement, References
8. Some words about VB demo

Introduction

kPropertySet.kObserver - This ActiveX control provides a way for presenting and editing of the set of properties (Visual Basic IDE - like property browser).

The main features are:

1. Editing a set of properties through the IDispatch interface.
2. Works with IPerPropertyBrowsing and ICategorizeProperties interfaces
3. Supports any type of property compatible with OLE automation
4. Supports user-defined types
5. Sorting for alphabet and categories
6. Flexible customization
7. Small size: 73.5 KB in release min size configuration

How it works

After receiving the pointer from the IDispatch interface, the control explores the type library. For each property with attribute "propget" there is an object implementing the logic of visualization, data exchange and data validation. The properties with attributes "hidden", "nonbrowsable", and "restricted" are skipped.

Control interface

The following is a description of the kObserver interface:

Property Dispatch:

External dispatch interface.

Property Font:

Current font.

Property BackColor:

Back color of list view window.

Property ForeColor:

Foreground color used for display text.

Property GridColor:

Color used for display grid.

Property HighliteBackColor:

Color used for display selected item.

Property HighliteForeColor:

Color used for display text of selected item.

Property EditBackColor:

Background color used for display edit window.

Property EditForeColor:

Foreground color used for display text in edit window.

Property SignColor:

The sign color.

Property EnableContextMenu:

Must be false if show of the context menu is unnecessary.

Property Categorized:

Sort mode, true if sorting by categories.

Property LineSpacing:

Additional spacing between rows can be negative.

Property exStyleEdit:

Extended window style of edit window.

Property SelectName:

Name of active property.

Property SelectDesc:

Description of active property.

Property SelectValue:

Value of active property.

Property SelectDispid:

DISPID of active property.

Source interface

Method OnChangeSelect:

Occurs when user changes the active property.

User interface

Keyboard keys:

• F5: refresh
• F2, tab: edit property (if possible)
• Space: simulate right button click

Context Menu:

• Alphabetic \ Categorized: select sort mode
• Restore \ Customize Self: edit self property or external
• Refresh: repaint and reload property value

Environment

This component was created with VC 6.0. (SP3) and ATL. It has been tested on Windows 2000 and Windows 98. Requires: Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, and Interned Explorer 4.

Acknowledgement, References

The following source code was used in writing this ActiveX control:

• Vladimir Scherbakov : "Template class that implements Property Browser"
• Stefan Belopotocan : "An Adaptable Property List Control"
• Andrew Nosenko : "ATL/AUX Library"

Thanks them once more.

Some words about VB demo

For persisting \ restoreing the property in VB runtime I write the kPersistMngs.kStorageMng component. It's a simple wrapper to work with compound files in VB.

History

• 6 Aug 2000 - updated to version 1.2 and fixes bugs detected by Robert Rolls