-First Article- Eeeep For Intermediate to Highly Advanced

Hey every1 this is going to be a tut about active x objects, some of you may have never heard of active x or what it is. That's ok I am going to explain from start to finish.

What is ActiveX?

ActiveX are controls, they are full of commands that you can use. Some companies make activex objects that do most of the hard work, so that you don't have to. The come in many forms and sizes. They are just like downloading an extension for your click product such as the direction calculator.

So what are they good for?
Well let's do a little work shall we? M'kay open up your MMF, I'm not sure wheter or not TGF can use Active X so this tutorial will be for MMF.

Open a blank .cca file and insert an activex object. It will do some loading, then it will list most of the activex objects on your computer. (If your computer is loaded with total crap, like my computer then it can take a while.) Next we can pick an activeX object to use. The most simplest to start off with is the browser object. Scroll down to Microsoft Web Browser and double click on it. Oops I almost forgot, this will only be there if you have or have ever had Microsoft Internet Explorer, soz Netscape guys. If you don't see it, then try something else that sounds easy such as the calender object.

You should now see a blank rectangle in the middle of your application.

So far so good.

This activex object is the commands for your Microsoft Internet Explorer. So almost anything you can do in your browser you can do here. I made a half finished browser and uploaded it as uneditable abandonware.

check it out here:
http://create-gamescom.readyhosting.com/download.asp?id=2770

The actual browser part didn't take that long, the bit that took the longest was the favourites.

Back to The Job
Alright, now that we have an activex object put in two buttons and an edit box. Put them anywhere as long as you can see them. Also make the edit box automatically scroll horizonatlly.

On one button type Forward and on the other type Back. Go to the event editor and click new condition. Set the new condition to if press enter then underneath the browser icon set the action to navigate. Which is located under Custom Action, Part #1.

When the expression editor comes up set it to get text from the edit object or Edittext$( Edit ). Now add a start of frame condition and set the action under navigate again. This time in the expression editor type:

http://ccsoft.cjb.net ;P

Or something like that.

Buttons, Buttons Glorious Buttons
Now for those buttons sitting there all alone . Make two new conditions one saying if pressed button1 the other saying if pressed button2 or whatever you named them.

For the button that says Forward under actions between the if button pressed condition and the Internet Explorer Icon. Set it to Go Forward under the custom actions tab, part #1. Do the same for the Back button except change the action to, Go Back.

There you have it.
You have successfully created a browser, all it needs is some colour and some Xtra features. If you are really into making a browser DC mail me and I can give you the source for my browser on how to make the favourites. Hint: it uses a sub-application.

What are you waiting for if you haven't already, Run your browser and feel proud. Now that you have learnt the basics of using active X objects, Experiment. They are literally thousands of active x objects (some are not free though.) The file name for an activex object is a .ocx . Search for them in your new browser, and download some more. Alot of applications your have had before will use ActiveX.

One more thing
Remeber to include the .ocx file that you use in your application/game because other people's computers might not have that activex.
Dc mail me for any troubles and get CLICKING. Shortly after this post I will upload something I made from the .ocx that comes with bonzi buddy and other stupid chatting bots, but without the annoying adds.

Keep clicking. Cheers!

-Andy