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The ActiveX Files

Alien Company Invades Internet Development World

We'll get to what ActiveX is, why you should pay attention, and how to start using it, but first it's important to peruse a little history so where Microsoft is coming from and where they are going becomes a little clearer.

While the current commercial Internet was bursting into public consciousness, Microsoft was--unconsciously, it seems--attempting to replicate much of the Web's functionality within its Microsoft Network (MSN) proprietary online service. Hyperlinking, graphical browsing of data, and an extensible architecture that would support new data and document types were all key features that were meant to distinguish MSN from popular, but technologically rigid, services like AOL and Prodigy.

The glue that held this architecture together was the OLE Controls or OCX model, a descendent of the application-linking technology developed for Microsoft Office and Visual Basic Controls (VBXs). Using OCXs, MSN developers were to be able to extend the basic presentation and interaction tools provided by Microsoft, making it a platform for third-party developers.

But MSN was derailed by the explosion of interest in the Web, which offered more functionality and reach for less investment--and also didn't tie third parties to Microsoft. Rumors of the death of the Wintel duopoly were rampant.

Enter ActiveX.

Never let it be said that Microsoft is not flexible, especially when it's home turf--control of the desktop--is under attack. If the world wouldn't play by Microsoft's rules, then it would simply change the game.

ActiveX is the result of a fundamental rethinking of the MSN approach and an absorption of the Internet into all aspects of the 32-bit Windows platforms. Often mistakenly thought of as Microsoft's answer to Sun Microsystem's Java (more on why this is wrong below), the framework actually describes a wide spectrum of tools, techniques, and presentation enhancements that make the Internet a fundamental part of Windows today and for the foreseeable future.

The container ActiveX holds five subcategories: ActiveX server-side controls and filters, Active Documents (formerly DocObjects), the Win32 implementation of the Java virtual machine, multiple scripting languages, and ActiveX Controls.

It is the last of these that has caused the confusion with applets. But this is the result of looking at the samples of the technology without examining how it works. While ActiveX Controls are related to OCXs, they are only kissing cousins. Still, those familiar with OLE 2.0 know that the quasi-object technology is language independent. Microsoft's J++ addition to its Developers Studio (which already or will soon include Visual C++ and Visual Basic) is supposed to have templates that allow ActiveX Controls to be written in Java and executed as Java applets on other platforms. Let that sink in for a second.

But what does that mean? Why not just write the applets in Java in the first place?

First of all, ActiveX builds on the five-year evolution of OLE from its original MS Office application-linking incarnation, to its current status as the engine of Windows 95 and NT application development. Along with that comes the robust and mature development tools from Microsoft, Borland, and others.

What's more, these ActiveX-Java hybrids will work cross-platform, just like other Java implementations, but in Windows environments they will have a few other characteristics that will set them apart. When they expose themselves as Active Controls, they will have access to the full resources of the operating system, use the blazing fast just-in-time compiler functions that are to become an operating system feature, and will be embeddable in any OLE container--like a Microsoft Office document--or (in Nashville) the desktop itself.

In fact, word from Microsoft developers is that Java is likely to emerge as the language of choice for building Active Controls because it leverages the relative simplicity of Java and the maturity of OLE. More on this and actual real-live help in building your first ActiveX Control in next week's column.