Adding Activex Exe project in a project group

[fiona_conard]

Hi all,

Why i cannot add an active x project into a project group?

I got error like this

c:\prjActiveXExe.vbp cannot be referenced because its project type is exe


Another question:
why i can add several standard exe projects into a project group? What is the difference between adding standard exe project and activex exe project into a project group?

Thank You!

[ralph]

An Ax.exe allows for automation of it's components and therefore referencing. Problem is it runs in a different process space than the calling application. So VB forces you to develop it in a separate instance of the IDE to be in its own process space.
Standard.exe also run in separate process spaces but VB allows them to be grouped because they can't be automated anyway (only one can run at a time).

Ralph

[fiona_conard]

Thanks Ralph!

Could u explain more about what is automation of it's components?

Thanks!

[ralph]

Take MS Word for example. This is an application that is really an ActiveX.exe. It has special classes (called components) that can do things like spell checking. Instead of writing your own spell checker feature in your standard.exe, you can automate Word (ie use code in your standard.exe to make Word run and use its component to do the spell checking).
Similarly you can write your own Ax.exe to do whatever and allow its classes to be used by other applications. You'll notice that classes in Ax.exe have an instancing property that allow for this while standard classes don't. But don't jump into that field unless you have a good understanding of how to code classes.

Ralph

[fiona_conard]

Thanks alot!