ASP.NET Web Developer's Guide

By Mesbah Ahmed, Chris Garrett, Jeremy Faircloth, and Chris Payne

Since 1996, ASP programmers have faced one upgrade after another, often with no extremely visible advantages until version 3.x—it’s been quite a wild ride. Now we have the first significant improvement in ASP programming within our grasp —ASP.NET. Our reliance on a watered-down version of Visual Basic has been alleviated now that ASP.NET pages may be programmed in both Microsoft’s new and more powerful version of Visual Basic or the latest version of C++: C#, which is more Web friendly.ASP.NET allows programmers and developers to work with both VB.NET and C# within the same ASP.NET page. .NET itself is a milestone for Microsoft; it marks Microsoft’s entry into the “run once, run everywhere” compiler market alongside Java and Ruby. .NET is also notable for its extreme flexibility; unlike the other choices available, .NET allows the programmer to use any number of .NET-compliant languages to create its code (however, as of this writing, only VB.NET and C# are allowed for ASP.NET) and have it run anywhere through the robust .NET Framework.Visual Basic and C++ have undergone changes as well; Visual Basic was already somewhat Web-oriented through its sibling,Visual Basic Script (VBS).

Since VBS was not visually orientated, like Visual Basic, this meant that a lot of the prewritten code employed by Visual Basic did not create performance issues.This did mean, however, that VBS was not graced with an IDE to debug or troubleshoot with, making the server logs and the browser error messages a programmer’s only hope of figuring out what went wrong and where.The lack of an IDE led to several complications and eventually programmers had to create their own error-handling system, usually consisting of a log file and e-mail notification.

VBS had another obstacle to overcome in attempting to offer programmers more than what originally was basically a scaled-down version of Visual Basic.VBS lacked many of Visual Basic’s strong features due to the way that the IIS was limited at the time, especially with object creation and cleanup. Programmers experienced code or objects locking up before destruction, rampant memory leaks, and even buffer overflows that were caused by IIS, not by the code itself.

With .NET in general,Visual Basic and VBS are now one and the same. All of the Web-oriented abilities of VBS have been given to Visual Basic and it has received a significant retooling of the language and syntax. Many previous problems, such as poor memory management and object control, have been resolved by the .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR) and internal programming additions, such as the inclusion of the Try/Catch error-handling system and more low-level abilities than before. All in all,Visual Basic can now be called a true programming language.

C++ retained all the aspects that made it a powerful programming language, such as its excellent object control and error-handling techniques, in its new version, C#. It has now gained a very good IDE as well as being more Web-based, a trait that can be attributed to the .NET Framework and ASP.NET. It is expected that many programmers will still use C# for object control while combining it with Visual Basic’s ease of use for GUI and presentation.

This book is meant to show all ASP programmers, new and old, just how powerful ASP.NET now is. Unlike ASP 1.x through 3.x, which worked in Windows 95 through the Personal Web Server tool, you will need at least Windows 2000, all the latest service packs, Internet Explorer 6, IIS 5.x (up to date), and the .NET SDK installed. As of this writing, the latest version of .NET is Beta 2, which covers the framework,ASP, and its programming languages. Remember, this book is meant to be an introduction to ASP.NET, not VB.NET or C#. If you need a good book on VB.NET or C#, I recommend looking to two other books published by Syngress Publishing: The VB.NET Developer’s Guide (ISBN 1-928994-48-2) and The C#.NET Web Developer’s Guide (ISBN 1-928994-50-4).

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COM and .NET Interoperability

By Andrew Troelsen

The funny thing about writing a book on COM and .NET interoperability is that one author could craft a five- to ten-page article describing the basic details that you must understand to get up and running with interop-related endeavors. At the same time, another author could write volumes of material on the exact same subject. So, you may be asking, how could this massive discrepancy between authors possibly exist?

Well, stop and think for a moment about the number of COM-aware programming languages and COM application frameworks that exist. Raw C++/IDL, ATL, MFC, VB 6.0, and Object Pascal (Delphi) each have their own syntactic tokens that hide the underbelly of COM from view in various ways. Thus, the first dilemma you face as an interop author is choosing which language to use to build the COM sample applications.

Next, ponder the number of .NET-aware programming languages that are either currently supported or under development. C#, VB .NET, COBOL .NET, APL .NET, PASCAL .NET, and so on, each have their own unique ways of exposing features of the CTS to the software engineer. Therefore, the next dilemma is choosing which language to use to build the .NET applications.

Even when you solve the first two dilemmas and choose the languages to use during the course of the book, the final dilemma has to do with the assumptions made regarding the readers themselves. Do they have a solid understanding of IDL and the COM type system? Do they have a solid understanding of the .NET platform, managed languages, and metadata? If not, how much time should be spend pounding out such details?

Given the insane combinations of language preferences and reader backgrounds, I have chosen to take a solid stance in the middle ground. If I have done my job correctly, you will walk away from this text with the skills you need to tackle any interop-centric challenge you may encounter. Also, I am almost certain you will learn various tantalizing tidbits regarding the COM and .NET type systems.

My ultimate goal in writing this book is to provide you with a solid foundation of COM and .NET interoperability. To achieve this goal, I have chosen to provide material that defines the finer details of the COM and .NET architectures. For example, over the course of the first six chapters, you will learn how to programmatically generate and parse COM IDL, dynamically generate C# and VB .NET source code on the fly (via System.CodeDOM), and build .NET applications that can read COM type information. After all, when you need to build a software solution that makes use of two entirely unique programming paradigms, you had better have a solid understanding of each entity.

However, once this basic foundation has been laid, the bulk of this book describes the process of making COM and .NET binaries coexist in harmony. As an added bonus, I cover the process of building .NET code libraries that can leverage the services provided by the COM+ runtime layer (via System.EnterpriseServices).

COM and .NET Interoperability

Improving .NET Application Performance and Scalability

By J.D. Meier, Srinath Vasireddy, Ashish Babbar, and Alex Mackman

Improving .NET Application Performance and Scalability provides an approach to engineering applications for performance and scalability.

This guide provides a principle-based approach for engineering performance and scalability throughout your application life cycle.

The guidance is task-based and presented in parts that correspond to life cycles, tasks, and roles. It is designed to be used as a reference or be read from beginning to end, and is divided into five parts:

• Part I, "Introduction to Engineering for Performance," outlines how to apply performance considerations throughout your application life cycle.
• Part II, "Designing for Performance," gives you an approach for architecting and designing for performance, using performance modeling. The design guidelines in this part include a set of guiding principles and technology-agnostic practices.
• Part III, "Application Performance and Scalability," provides deep platform knowledge across the Microsoft® .NET Framework technologies.
• Part IV, "Database Server Performance and Scalability," presents a consolidation of the most important techniques for improving database performance.
• Part V, "Measuring, Testing, and Tuning," provides a process, tools, and techniques for evaluating performance and scalability.

This .Net guide is valuable for anyone who cares about application performance objectives. It is designed to be used by technologists from many different disciplines, including architects, developers, testers, performance analysts, and administrators. The guidance is task-based, and is presented in parts that correspond to the various stages of the application life cycle and to the people and roles involved during the life cycle.

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An Introduction to ASP .NET using Visual Basic .NET

By Peter McMahon

This book is aimed primarily at three groups of people. First, those readers who are Visual Basic programmers and wish to learn how to develop Web applications using ASP.NET by applying what they’ve learned in Visual Basic. = Second, current ASP programmers who wish to learn how to become more productive using the completely new, yet familiar, ASP.NET programming model and the Visual Studio .NET IDE. Third, current ASP and Visual Basic programmers who wish to merge their skills to increase their productivity.

This book assumes no previous knowledge of building Web applications or even simple, static Web pages using hand-coded HTML. There is a chapter dedicated to getting Visual Basic programmers without any HTML or Web building knowledge up to speed. However, this book does assume previous experience with the Visual Basic programming language or a previous subset thereof, VBScript. Included is a section showing the differences between VBScript (and previous versions of Visual Basic) and the Visual Basic .NET language that should prevent some of the subtleties of the language from causing any problems. Knowledge of object-oriented programming is advantageous, although not essential.

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65 Tips for Migrating to Visual Studio .NET

By Andrew Brust

1. Close the Dynamic Help window unless you're actively using it. Keeping it open all the time forces it to frequently load topics and can slow down Visual Studio .NET significantly.
2. Need an easy way to build a SQLDataAdapter object against a table at design time, without even having to use a Wizard? Just drag and drop a table from the Server Explorer window onto your Windows Form or Web Form and Visual Studio .NET will automatically create a SQLDataAdapter object against the table, and will build the necessary Select, Update, Delete and Insert commands as well. As a bonus, if you didn't already have a SQLConnection object pointing to the database containing the table, Visual Studio .NET will create that for you as well.
3. Want to create a strongly typed DataSet without having to do a lot of work at design time? You can! Just create a DataSet in code, and export its schema to an XSD file using the DataSet's WriteXMLSchema method (which accepts a file name as a parameter). After doing this, you can add the file to your project, open it in the XML Schema Designer by double-clicking on it in the Solution Explorer window, then Choose Schema/Generate Dataset from Visual Studio .NET's menu to create a strongly typed DataSet based on it.

by Avonelle Lovhaug

1. With ASP.NET (just as with ASP), it is easy to change the source code files and reload the page in a browser to test. However, some files require more effort. Remember that when changing the global.asax, you will need to recompile the project in order for changes to take effect.
2. With Visual Interdev, FrontPage server extensions were used for integration with SourceSafe. While this is still possible, the recommended approach is to use "File Share" mode. Set up your Web applications with file share mode, then use "Add solution to source code control" to easily add the entire project to SourceSafe.

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ASP.NET AJAX Roadmap

Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX documentation includes overviews, tutorials, and API reference topics.

Introduction
Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX enables you to quickly create Web pages that include a rich user experience with responsive and familiar user interface (UI) elements. ASP.NET AJAX provides client-script libraries that incorporate cross-browser ECMAScript (JavaScript) and dynamic HTML (DHTML) technologies, and it integrates them with the ASP.NET 2.0 server-based development platform. By using ASP.NET AJAX, you can improve the user experience and the efficiency of your Web applications.

Why Use ASP.NET AJAX?
ASP.NET AJAX enables you to build rich Web applications that have many advantages over Web applications that are completely server-based. ASP.NET AJAX applications offer:

• Improved efficiency by performing significant parts of a Web page's processing in the browser.
• Familiar UI elements such as progress indicators, tooltips, and pop-up windows.
• Partial-page updates that refresh only the parts of the Web page that have been updated.
• Client integration with ASP.NET application services for forms authentication and user profiles.
• Integration of data from different sources through calls to Web services.
• A framework that simplifies customization of server controls to include client capabilities.
• Support for the most popular and generally used browsers, including Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Apple Safari.

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Building Secure ASP.NET Applications: Authentication, Authorization, and Secure Communication

By J.D. Meier, Alex Mackman, Michael Dunner, and Srinath Vasireddy

This guide presents a practical, scenario driven approach to designing and building secure ASP.NET applications for Windows 2000 and version 1.0 of the .NET Framework. It focuses on the key elements of authentication, authorization, and secure communication within and across the tiers of distributed .NET Web applications. (This roadmap: 6 printed pages; the entire guide: 608 printed pages)

This guide focuses on:

• Authentication (to identify the clients of your application)
• Authorization (to provide access controls for those clients)
• Secure communication (to ensure that messages remain private and are not altered by unauthorized parties)

Why authentication, authorization, and secure communication?
Security is a broad topic. Research has shown that early design of authentication and authorization eliminates a high percentage of application vulnerabilities. Secure communication is an integral part of securing your distributed application to protect sensitive data, including credentials, passed to and from your application, and between application tiers.

There are many technologies used to build .NET Web applications. To build effective application-level authentication and authorization strategies, you need to understand how to fine-tune the various security features within each product and technology area, and how to make them work together to provide an effective, defense-in-depth security strategy. This guide will help you do just that.

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WebSphere MQ Solutions in a Microsoft .NET Environment

The importance of the .NET platform is growing. This IBM Redbook illustrates how to integrate WebSphere MQ technology in a .NET environment, specifically with Microsoft Windows, by providing samples and guidance about how this can be achieved. It demonstrates the use of WebSphere MQ technology in a Microsoft Windows platform and proves WebSphere MQ is well integrated with the .NET environment.

This redbook demonstrates the use of WebSphere MQ in a .NET Web Service in these ways:

WebSphere MQ is used as a transport mechanism for the invocation of the Web Service by modifying the SOAP protocol wrapper to utilize WebSphere MQ rather than HTTP.

WebSphere MQ is used as a middleware product in the implementation of a Web Service. For example, the Web Service sends an MQ message as a request to another application and when this application responds, the Web Service provides a response back to the .NET Web Service client. Some sample applications in, C#, J2EE and VB.NET also demonstrate this.

Finally, a discussion about transactions is included, which highlights how WebSphere MQ participates in a transaction managed by DTC, and also how WebSphere MQ implements and uses Windows security interfaces, such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), is covered.

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Special Edition Using Microsoft® Visual Studio for Enterprise Development

This book is aimed at software developers of client/server and Internet/intranet (I-net) enabled applications who are responsible for creating and deploying applications by using the Microsoft development tool suite, and information system managers faced with planning issues. You'll learn how to design and develop applications and components by using Microsoft Visual Studio and its individual products. This book provides excellent advice for developers who must implement applications in a Microsoft BackOffice environment with Windows NT Server, Internet Information Server, SQL Server, and Microsoft Transaction Server. It also provides good advice for technical managers on how to use Microsoft products to build state-of-the-art systems that will improve their business footing and leverage their automated information systems to maximize return on investment.

With the variety of material presented in Special Edition Using Microsoft Visual Studio, coupled with its high quality of content, up-to-date material, level of detail, and easy-to-follow "how-to" format, this is the all-encompassing book you will quickly come to depend on to supply answers to your Microsoft Visual Studio questions. Although each product that makes up the Microsoft Visual Studio suite is described separately within the book, special attention is paid to integration issues and techniques. Also, portions of the book are devoted to providing background material to enhance your understanding of critical concepts, and how to be really effective with Microsoft Visual Studio in the enterprise.

This book is organized in a logical sequence, starting with a discussion of Microsoft Visual Studio basics, an overview of the product, and background material on creating database applications--a key area of concern for most developers. The chapters in Part II, "Creating Controls and Components for Reuse," focus on the important new techniques for creating component-based applications with Microsoft's object technologies such as COM and DCOM, and web-based technologies such as ActiveX and Java. Separate chapters are devoted to Visual Basic, Visual C++, and Visual J++, each an important language included in Visual Studio. Part II also includes chapters on using ActiveX components in I-net and client/server environments.

The chapters in Part III, "Developing Internet, Intranet, and Extranet Applications," are devoted entirely to the most active area of recent growth--that of applications designed to run in I-net environments. Detailed coverage is provided on both the client and server sides of these applications. This includes information on creating web browser-based applications and using Microsoft's addition to Internet Information Server known as Active Server Pages. The use of Visual InterDev, another major element of Visual Studio, is covered in detail, including the use of design-time controls. There is also coverage of Dynamic HTML, server-side scripting issues, and the techniques for integrating existing applications into an I-net infrastructure.

The chapters in Part IV, "Developing Scalable Distributed Applications," focus on the more traditional client/server development techniques, with a special emphasis on creating distributed applications by using multiple databases. Using Visual Basic with both RDO and ADO is covered. Also, two chapters are devoted exclusively to using Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) to create scalable, transaction-based applications for hard-core, line-of-business use.

The final chapters of the book, in Part V, "Team Development with Visual Studio," deal with the tools that help teams of programmers work together. These tools include Visual SourceSafe, Visual Modeler, and the Microsoft Repository. Using each tool is described, in addition to background information on the rationale for using these powerful additions to the Visual Studio suite.

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Visual Basic 6 Black Book

By Steven Holzner

Welcome to your Visual Basic support package. That’s what this book has been designed to be: your complete VB support package. Have we reached that goal yet? It’s up to you to decide. If what you’re looking for is not in this edition, we’ll work hard to make sure it’s in the next—I encourage your suggestions. Please feel free to write. We’ll put in the time to make sure this book is the most complete one available on Visual Basic, edition after edition. This is the book we want you to come back to again and again.

I’ve used Visual Basic back before version 1 even came out publicly and have written many books on the program. I put Visual Basic to work for a very wide range of uses day after day; in fact, it’s is my favorite programming package of all, and it comes close to being my favorite program period. But I’ve never written a book on Visual Basic as complete as this one and never included as many features, documented or undocumented, examples, and tips in one volume.

This book has been designed to give you the coverage you just won’t find in any other book. Other books often omit not only the larger topics, like deploying your program after you’ve created it and creating Help files, but also the smaller ones, like covering in depth just about every control that comes with Visual Basic, including the ActiveX controls—from the MS chart control to flat scroll bars, from the serial port comm control to the Internet transfer control.

Reluctantly, I must admit that it’s impossible for one volume to be utterly comprehensive on the subject of Visual Basic (impossible because it’s not physically possible to bind a book that big yet), but we’re trying our best. It’s true that some specialty books might have more coverage on a few topics, but if you want to see more on a particular topic, write in and we’ll work seriously on adding more of that topic to the next edition.

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WebSphere and .Net Interoperability Using Web Services

IBM and Microsoft are strong supporters of the Web Services Interoperability Organization’s (WS-I) efforts to make building solutions using software from different suppliers a reality. In this IBM Redbook, we take a practical look at building a solution with IBM WebSphere and Microsoft .Net components using Web services that are compliant with the WS-I organization’s Basic Profile.

This redbook is aimed at customers who want to know how far the reality of Web services has caught up with the hype; it is for customers who want a redbook to help them decide whether Web services are right for them now.

The book provides an introduction to SOAP, WSDL and the rest of the Web services concepts. It provides a review of the many Web service specifications. Which ones are most important to building a practical solution?

We use a scenario based on work IBM has been doing with the insurance industry to demonstrate how to design a service-based solution and then implement it using the latest programming tools from IBM and Microsoft. Based on our experience, we identify areas where extra effort up front will be rewarded with an easier implementation.

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Mastering™ Visual Basic® .NET

By Evangelos Petroutsos

You don’t need to know Visual Basic to read Mastering Visual Basic .NET, but you do need a basic understanding of programming. You need to know the meaning of variables and functions and how an If…Then structure works. This book is addressed to the typical programmer who wants to get the most out of Visual Basic. It covers the topics I feel are of use to most VB programmers, and it does so in depth. Visual Basic .NET is an extremely rich programming environment, and I’ve had to choose between superficial coverage of many topics and in-depth coverage of fewer topics. To makeroom for more topics, I have avoided including a lot of reference material and lengthy listings. For example, you won’t find complete project listings or Form descriptions. I assume you can draw a few controls on a Form and set their properties, and you don’t need long descriptions of the properties of the control. I’m also assuming that you don’t want to read the trivial segments of each application. Instead, the listings concentrate on the “meaty” part of the code: the procedures that explain the topic at hand. If you want to see the complete listing, it’s all on the CD.

The topics covered in this book were chosen to provide a solid understanding of the principles and techniques for developing applications with Visual Basic. Programming isn’t about new keywords and functions. I chose the topics I felt every programmer should learn in order to master the language. I was also motivated by my desire to present useful, practical examples. You will not find all topics equally interesting or important. My hope is that everyone will find something interesting and something of value to their daily work—whether it’s an application that maps the folders and files of a drive to a TreeView control, an application that prints tabular data, or an application that saves a collection of objects to a file.

Many books offer their readers long, numbered sequences of steps to accomplish something. Following instructions simplifies certain tasks, but programming isn’t about following instructions. It’s about being creative; it’s about understanding principles and being able to apply the same techniques in several practical situations. And the way to creatively exploit the power of a language such as Visual Basic .NET is to understand its principles and its programming model.

In many cases, I provide a detailed, step-by-step procedure that will help you accomplish a task, such as designing a menu. But not all tasks are as simple as designing menus. I explain why things must be done in a certain way, and I present alternatives and try to connect new topics to those explained earlier in the book. In several chapters, I expand on applications developed in earlier chapters. Associating new knowledge to something you have already mastered provides positive feedback and a deeper understanding of the language.

This book isn’t about the hottest features of the language; it’s about solid programming techniques and practical examples. For example, I’m not going to show you how to write multithreaded applications. The real challenge with multithreaded applications is their debugging, which requires substantial experience. Once you master the basics of programming Windows applications with Visual Basic .NET and you feel comfortable with the more advanced examples of the book, you will find it easy to catch up with the topics that aren’t discussed.

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Inside ASP.NET Web Matrix

By Alex Homer and Dave Sussman

During its relatively short but spectacularly successful life, Microsoft® Active Server Pages (ASP) has grown from a simple scripting environment for creating dynamic Web pages into a powerful and easy-to-use platform for fully-fledged Web application development. In its latest incarnation, ASP.NET, it provides a complete solution for building almost any type of interactive user interface, as well as for implementing extensive back-end processing operations.

However, despite the many powerful features of ASP, choosing a comprehensive and usable development environment in which to create ASP applications was never easy. Many third parties provide ASP support in their products, for example HomeSite and Macromedia UltraDev (among others) support ASP 3.0, and, of course, Microsoft's own Visual Studio 6.0 included InterDev – which was also available as a standalone product.

With the advent of .NET, support for ASP.NET development has been fully integrated into Visual Studio .NET. It provides an extremely powerful and usable environment for ASP.NET development in the guise of Web Forms, as well as the more traditional types of application (Windows Forms). And now Visual Studio .NET is joined by another Microsoft product, namely the Microsoft ASP.NET Web Matrix Project (referred to from here on in as "Web Matrix").

At the time of writing, Web Matrix has just been released as a Beta 1 product. The whole nature of the Microsoft ASP.NET Web Matrix project is that it will develop and grow based on feedback from the community that uses it, so the feature set will evolve over time. You should also keep in mind that, as this is a Beta product, there are quite a few features that are not yet fully implemented (so some things you may expect to see are missing).

However, even at this stage Web Matrix is an extremely usable and efficient tool, and certainly well worth installing and experimenting with. In time, it will, without doubt, mature and be extended to provide many more of the features required for building Web sites and Web applications using ASP.NET.

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Programming the .NET Compact Framework in Visual Basic .NET

by Paul Yao & David Durant

The .NET Compact Framework is a programming interface and runtime library created as a combination of two Microsoft technologies: Windows CE, an operating system for mobile and embedded 'smart devices', and .NET, Microsoft's reinvention of its programming interfaces and its developer tools.

What is .Net

From the moment Microsoft made its .NET initiative public, the question was: "What is .NET?" The short answer is that it is a branding that covers all the different parts of a larger strategy. Another answer, from the Microsoft web site, offers the following, pithy explanation:

Microsoft® .NET is a set of software technologies for connecting information, people, systems, and devices. This new generation of technology is based on Web services—small building-block applications that can connect to each other as well as to other, larger applications over the Internet.

This explanation focuses on the new features that .NET introduces: the network focus for .NET. Towards that end, it mentions one element of .NET: Web services. If you interpret this too literally, you risk missing the larger picture that .NET addresses. At this point, this much should be clear: .NET is a large undertaking by a large company.

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Teach Yourself Visual J++ in 21 Days

by Laura Lemay, David Olhasso, Charles Perkins, and Patrick Winters

This book is intended to be read and absorbed over the course of three weeks. During each week, you'll read seven chapters that present concepts related to Visual J++.

In 21 days you will learn

1. An Introduction to Java Programming, Why you should learn Java, Touring Microsoft Developer Studio for Visual J++
2. Introducing Visual J++ , Installing Visual J++, Getting Started with Microsoft Visual J++
3. Object-Oriented Programming and Java, Classes and objects, Inheritance, Packages and interfaces
4. Java Basics, Java statements and expressions, Variables and data types, Expressions and operators
5. Working with Objects, Creating instances of classes (Objects), Calling methods in objects
6. Arrays, Conditionals, and Loops, Block statements,Conditional tests, Loops
7. Creating Classes and Applications in Java, Declaring and using instance variables, Defining and using methods, Creating Java applications
8. More About Methods, Overloading methods, Creating constructor methods, Overriding methods
9. Java Applet Basics, Differences between Java applets and applications, Getting started with applets, Including an applet on a Web page
10. Graphics, Fonts, and Color, Using Java graphics primitives,Creating and using fonts, Color in Java
11. Simple Animation and Threads, How a Visual J++ animation works, Threads, Reducing animation flicker
12. Creating an Interface using Visual J++, AWT overview, Creating a simple dialog resource, Nesting panels and components
13. More on Graphical Front Ends using Visual J++., Creating windows, menus, and dialog boxes, Handling window, mouse, and keyboard events
14. Compiler Errors and Debugging, Dealing with compiler errors, Dealing with runtime errors
15. COM, ActiveX, and JDBC, How Visual J++ works with COM and other ActiveX objects, Using Visual J++ to access databases using DAO, RDO and JDBC
16. Connecting Java to a Network and Other Tidbits, Creating links inside applets, Opening Web connections, Sockets
17. Modifiers, Access Control, and Class Design, How to use a modifier, Controlling access to methods and variables, Instance variable accessor methods
18. Packages, Interfaces, and Exception Handling, Creating your own packages, Designing and working with interfaces, Exception handlers
19. Introduction to JavaScript, Data Types, Expressions, Statements, Functions
20. Introduction to VBScript, Differences between VBScript and Visual Basic, Statements, Procedures
21. Integrating Applets and ActiveX Controls with Scripting, Integrating a Java applet to HTML, Controlling a Java applet with VBScript and JavaScript, Integrating ActiveX controls into HTML

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Teach Yourself VBScript in 21 Days

by Keith Brophy, Timothy Koets

How important is VBScript to the future of computing? How important is it to you? Does it give you new capabilities that you can't get in other languages, or is it just another choice in a sea laden with confusing buzzwords? If you've pondered questions like these, you're not alone. VBScript is one of the most exciting new players in the rapidly expanding universe of technologies loosely termed the Internet. The purpose of this book is to teach you how to use VBScript. As a brief prerequisite to that journey, consider why VBScript is such an important part of the Web page development arsenal. Perhaps the best way to understand the potential of this future-centered technology is to take a look at how far the Internet has come. You might find that you have been involved in many of the trends leading up to the advent of VBScript without even realizing it, just as the authors have been.

A little over a decade ago, one of the authors was producing Department of Defense software and the reams of documentation that go along with it. One of the requirements in putting together this documentation stipulated that it should be generated in a markup language called SGML. This markup language was quite cumbersome. For example, it required that each heading start with an h1 tag and each paragraph with a p tag. Eventually, this project came to an end, and it seemed that this memory was just a relic of the past. Then, along came the World Wide Web. Behold: The World Wide Web is based on a page description language inherited to a large extent from SGML! The tag-oriented approach for Web pages succeeded precisely because it leaves the work of presenting Web pages to the browser. This approach provides an efficient, low-overhead means for communicating across the Internet because it enables the information sent across the network to be content-centered while the browser takes care of the cosmetic details on its own....

This book is intended to be completed in 21 days-one chapter per day-although the pace is really up to you. We have designed the book as a teacher would teach a course. We start with the basics and continue to introduce more of the language to you as the chapters progress. By the end of the first week, you will be creating your first VBScript Web page. As you work through the chapters, you will continue to design Web pages using VBScript that will become increasingly more powerful. In the second and third weeks, you will be exploring the more advanced features VBScript provides. In addition to instruction, we will furnish an abundance of examples, as well as exercises for you to try. You can learn a great deal by reading, but only when you try building a few VBScript Web pages of your own can you become truly experienced.

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Special Edition Using Microsoft Visual InterDev

Since Visual InterDev is such a catch-all for so many different technologies, we've made the book a reference and guide not just for Visual InterDev but also for the many other applications and technologies you'll need to know as an InterDev developer. In creating an InterDev site, you'll touch on such varied topics as Web server administration, database design, graphics, scripting languages, and so on. Whether you've been creating Web sites for years, or you're new to the Internet altogether, this book will serve to give you a thorough understanding of Visual InterDev and its associated technologies. We've also added a focus in the book toward the database developer who is interested in moving development towards Internet standards.

The book is divided into 10 parts:

• Part I. Getting Started
  Offers a quick-start overview of Visual InterDev and some simple tutorials.
• Part II. Using Microsoft Visual InterDev
  Covers Visual InterDev installation, with complete coverage of its IDE.
• Part III. Visual InterDev Content Editors
  Provides details on each of the content editors that ship with Visual InterDev.
• Part IV. Using ActiveX Controls with Visual InterDev
  Learn how to build ActiveX controls and incorporate them into your sites.
• Part V. Visual InterDev Administration Guide
  Explains how to set up and administer Web servers and database servers and deal with security.
• Part VI. Web Site Scripting
  Covers client- and server-side scripting.
• Part VII. Database Development with Visual InterDev
  Explains the basics of database programming and covers the Visual DataTools of Visual InterDev.
• Part VIII. Optimizing Performance
  Offers chapters on optimizing the performance of scripting, Web pages, and multimedia content.
• Part IX. Developing Successful Web Sites
  Concludes with example sites for handling database connectivity and ActiveX controls, and discussions on making your site successful.
• Appendices
  The appendices offer useful resources for Visual InterDev developers, an Action/Problem Index, and extensive details about the contents of the CD-ROM.

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Using Visual Interdev 6 (Special Edition Using)

Late Night ActiveX

By Eric Tall and Mark Ginsburg

The material in this book is intended for Windows and Web developers who want to know what ActiveX is about, and want to begin using it immediately in their applications and/or Web sites.

If you develop commercial Windows applications, you will need to learn about ActiveX if only to stay competitive. Microsoft wants third-party developers to use this new technology to make their applications "Internet aware," so you can expect that your peers will be using the ActiveX tools.

Similarly, if you are a Web developer you'll want to read this book to learn how to incorporate ActiveX technologies into your current and future sites. The Web has become increasingly interactive and multimedia oriented. (1994 and 1995 saw CGI pushed to the limits and ushered in plug-ins as well as other technologies.) A static home page will before long be "old-fashioned." Incorporating even simple ActiveX technologies into a Web site will allow the developer to stay on the cutting edge of Web development.

This book is not meant to be, nor can it be a "comprehensive" document. The industry is moving too fast for that; Microsoft is moving too fast for that. What you will find here is help in getting a firm grasp on the programming principles and techniques needed for using and understanding the ActiveX tools. These principles will hold, even as ActiveX is extended and enhanced by Microsoft or third-party vendors.

We have attempted to produce a book as modular as possible. When you find a need to learn a particular set of tools, you can go directly to the appropriate chapter or section and find the information you want, without having to read preliminary material. For some subjects this was not possible, and in those cases we direct you to whatever additional sources you need to explore.

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Late Night Activex

Database Developer's Guide with Visual Basic 4, Second Edition

By Roger Jennings

Here's a list of the most important new features of Visual Basic 4.0 that are of interest to database developers, primarily related to the Jet database engine in 16-bit and 32-bit database front-ends:

• The Jet 3.0 database engine, which optimizes the performance of new 32-bit Visual Basic 4.0 database front-ends.
• Two 32-bit DAO TypeLibs for the 32-bit version of Visual Basic 4.0. The Microsoft DAO 2.5/3.0 Compatibility Library is designed to provide backward compatibility with existing 16-bit Visual Basic 3.0 database code written to DAO 2.0 or 2.5. The Microsoft DAO 3.0 Object Library requires that you obey new Jet 3.0 syntax rules.
• Capability of the 16-bit version of Visual Basic to create a VBA reference to the 16-bit version of the Jet 2.5 TypeLib, called the Microsoft DAO 2.5 Object Library (version 2.5), which implements all of the object subclasses of the Jet 2.5 DAO, together with the properties of and methods applicable to each of the DAO's member objects.
• 16-bit and 32-bit data-aware grid, list box, and combo box OLE Controls that you can bind to the DAO's new Recordset object.
• Improved query performance against large tables with Rushmore optimization borrowed from Microsoft FoxPro. Depending on the size of your tables and the complexity of your queries, you can gain a ten-fold or better speed increase, and Jet 3.0 speeds up indexing by about a factor of 10.
• SQL Data Definition Language (DDL) statements for creating databases, tables, and indexes. The DAO provides new Users and Groups collections for managing database security with VBA and the Relations collection for enforcing referential integrity.
• Multiple Workspace objects, each representing an instance of the Jet 3.0 engine, support their own set of security objects, have separate transaction spaces, and can execute interlaced multiple transactions.
• ODBC support for multiple result sets from client/server queries, improved error reporting, and enhanced SQL Server performance with the new 32-bit ODBC 2.5 driver.
• A new Recordset object that replaces Visual Basic 3.0's Table, Dynaset, and Snapshot objects.
• The 32-bit Remote Data Object (RDO) and Remote Data Control (RDC) of the Enterprise Edition of Visual Basic 4.0 substitute a "thin layer over ODBC" to speed queries against client/server RDBMSs. The RDO permits asynchronous query execution and expands Visual Basic 4.0's capability to handle complex server stored procedures.

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Database Developer's Guide with Visual C++ 4, Second Edition

By Roger Jennings & Peter Hipson

Who Should Read This Book?

Visual C++ developers who want to take advantage of Visual C++'s database connectivity to create high-speed, commercial-quality graphic front ends for a variety of desktop and client-server database applications.

Access developers who have found that they need more control over their data display and forms than is afforded by the different versions of Access. Visual C++ database applications also consume far fewer Windows resources than equivalent Access applications.

Visual Basic developers who want to take advantage of Visual C++'s automated access to the Windows APIs, gain function callback capability, and manipulate pointers.

Developers of xBase and Paradox applications who need to create industrial-strength, 32-bit database front ends running under Windows 95 or Windows NT 3.5x.

Users and developers of proprietary GUI front-end development systems who are tired of paying substantial per-seat licensing fees for each client workstation attached to the server.

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Dan Appleman's Developing ActiveX Components with Visual Basic 5.0

By Dan Appleman

I've been waiting to write a book on ActiveX technology for years. True, it didn't used to be called ActiveX. Perhaps it was called OLE, or OLE Controls, or VBX, or Visual Basic Custom Controls. It doesn't matter. All along I've been working with the technology as it evolved and waiting for the right time to do a book on the subject. I was waiting for Visual Basic to mature to the point where it could be used to create these types of controls.

When I saw the beta for Visual Basic 5, I knew my wait was over, which left me with a problem. How do I write a book on this technology that will be both incredibly useful to Visual Basic programmers and also stand out from the myriad of ActiveX VB books that undoubtedly will appear on the bookshelves at the same time? How do I write a book detailed enough for the advanced programmer, but with enough scope to welcome even a beginning Visual Basic programmer to ActiveX development?

So I put on my programmer hat and thought about the things that I like and hate about technology books and quickly realized this: I hate manual rehashes.

Simply paraphrasing the Microsoft documentation is pointless. A certain amount of that is inevitable, I suppose, but at least an author should add a significant amount of new material-and, perhaps, a creative new way of looking at the technology that does not echo the manuals. I also hate having to read through things I know to find a few tidbits of new information. You know the kind of book I'm talking about, where a supposedly advanced book starts out by explaining how to draw controls on forms, click a mouse, and turn on the computer.

I knew I wanted to do a comprehensive book on ActiveX and object programming using Visual Basic. I knew I did not want to waste a lot of time rehashing the manual. In fact, I'll let you in on a little secret: The Visual Basic 5.0 documentation is not bad at all. I suppose that is an odd thing for an after-market book author to say. I realized as I was reading the VB5 documentation that it would be perfect…

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ActiveX Programming Unleashed

by Weiying Chen

Microsoft has unveiled an extensive new solution technology for the Internet called ActiveX. Microsoft ActiveX is a broad and powerful abstraction for Microsoft Internet Solutions. Content providers and Internet application developers now have a robust and extensible frameworks that enables them to develop a new generation of Internet applications.

Microsoft is aggressively adding features to the Win32 Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that will let developers "Internet-enable" their applications. These new features are based on Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technology so that developers who have made investments into Win32 and OLE applications can leverage their investments.

ActiveX exposes a set of APIs that enables developing a new generation of client/server applications for the Internet. ActiveX has interfaces to integrate almost every media technology within an application. It provides extensive support for animation, 3D virtual reality, real-time audio, and real-time video.

ActiveX gives developers an open framework for building innovative applications for the Internet. ActiveX technologies form a robust framework for creating interactive content using reusable components, scripts, and existing applications. Specifically, ActiveX technologies enable content providers and application developers to create powerful and dynamic Web content and Web server extensions quite easily. This feat is achieved by using ActiveX controls, Active client and server side scripts, and the Active document interfaces and ISAPI (Internet Server Application Programming Interface).

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VBScript UNLEASHED

By Petroutsos, Schongar, et al.

This book is about a scripting language called VBScript. VBScript is used to control content and objects in HTML pages designed for the World Wide Web and corporate intranets. VBScript is not about creating applications; it's about creating active HTML. If your pages look and work like applications, that's fine. The most important thing that you're doing when you're using VBScript in your Web pages is bringing the pages to life. Dead, static pages on the Web are about as exciting as slides on television. In the future, pages will be designed on the fly, tailored to the profile of the individual user.

VBScript is a member of Microsoft's Visual Basic family of development products. Other members include Visual Basic (Professional and Standard Editions) and Visual Basic for Applications, which is the scripting language for Microsoft Excel. VBScript is a scripting language for HTML pages on the World Wide Web and corporate intranets.

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Teach Yourself ActiveX in 21 Days

By Sanders Kaufman, Jeff Perkins and Dina Fleet

Week One At A Glance

During Week 1, you will gain the fundamentals of scripting in relation to the Internet. By the end of the first week, you will be ready to start writing your own ActiveX scripts.

Programming for the Internet

Day 1 introduces you to programming for the Internet. In this chapter, you will learn to recognize the basic features of a hypertext document, as well as how to receive background information about ActiveX and Internet programming.

HTML & Scripting

Day 2 illustrates basic Web-page construction. You are introduced to the format of an HTML page and the specific tags that make each page work. When you are familiar with the basic form of an HTML page, you are shown how to incorporate scripting languages into your Web page.

Document Automation with Scripting

Day 3 introduces you to the international standard for client-side scripting, and discusses how Microsoft has implemented HTML scripting into ActiveX with their JScript (based on another company's script processes) and VBScript (based on Microsoft's own Visual Basic programming language). Finally, the chapter briefly discusses some of the considerations for building your own ActiveX scripting engine. This skill, however, requires an in-depth knowledge of a programming language, such as C++, and a knowledge of OLE programming in general. You are not limited to using a script language that already exists, however; if nobody makes the one you want, make it yourself!

The Tools of the Trade

Day 4 is a hands-on tour of four tools: Internet Assistant for Microsoft Word, HoTMetaL from SoftQuad, the Internet Information Server Add-In for Microsoft Access, and the ActiveX Control Pad from Microsoft. These tools can help you cut hours from you Web-site development time.

Programming for Internet Explorer

On Day 5, you will learn the programming environment inside Microsoft's Internet Explorer. During Day 4, you will learn how the parts of Internet Explorer are structured, and how to use them with a scripting language.

Writing VBScripts

Day 6 is an introduction and a reference to VBScript. During Week 2, you will learn how VBScript functions by working your way through dozens of examples that demonstrate syntax and function. By the end of Day 6, you will know how to use VBScript inside your HTML pages.

Writing JavaScripts

Day 7 is an introduction and a reference to JavaScript. During Week 2, you will learn how JavaScript functions by working your way through dozens of examples that demonstrate syntax and function. By the end of Day 7, you will know how to use JavaScript inside your HTML pages.

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ActiveX and VBScript

By Paul Lomax and Rogers Cadenhead

The ActiveX Control Pad and HTML Layout control that come together as a complete package are freely available for download from Microsoft's Site Builder Workshop Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/ (see Figure 1.1). Simply follow the links to the ActiveX Control Pad download area. At the time of writing, Microsoft requires you to complete a very straightforward registration form prior to downloading the ActiveX Control Pad.

To install and use the ActiveX Control Pad, you must first have Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 installed on your machine. Additionally, your system must have the following minimum specification:
pc 80486 or above
Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0
12MB RAM
10MB free hard disk space
Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0

The ActiveX Control Pad and HTML Layout Control are very easy to install. The single file containing them both is a self-extracting, self-installing archive. To set up the Control Pad, all you have to do is locate the file you downloaded (setuppad.exe) and double-click it to extract the contents and commence the installation procedure, as shown in Figure 1.2.

The installation creates a program group called Microsoft ActiveX Control Pad that you can access from the Windows 95 Start button. As with all software you install, the first thing you should do is read the readme, but you always do that anyway-don't you?

The ActiveX Control Pad is an HTML authoring tool with a difference. It enables you to add active controls and active scripting to your HTML pages. When I say active controls, I don't mean only ActiveX controls; you can embed Java applets, too. Active scripting doesn't mean only VBScript; JavaScript and Microsoft's implementation of JavaScript, known as JScript, are also supported. You can add controls quickly and easily using the familiar Windows point and click method.

ActiveX controls can be as simple as the buttons or drop-down lists you regularly find in Windows programs, or they can be complete stand-alone programs, somewhat like a Java applet.

You'll learn more about the theory of ActiveX controls in Chapter 21. But for now, create a simple active-content HTML page using one of the preloaded ActiveX controls.

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