Building a Plug-In style environment in Visual BASIC 6.0.

[Snaggs]

Has anyone built or is in the process building a plug-in style environment in Visual BASIC? An environment like this would allow the user to customize the application with their own plug-in. IE 5 and Netscape do this for the different multimedia applications like Quicktime, RealAudio, etc.<br>
<br>
Thanks,<br>
<br>
Steve<br>
<A HREF="mailto:sdmeier@jcn1.com">sdmeier@jcn1.com</A>

 

[DougP]

Do you want to change they way Visual Basic works or do you want to change the way your application works that was made in Visual Basic?<br>

 

[Snaggs]

Doug,<br>
<br>
We want to change the way our application works. The app is written in VB 6.0. We want to write a standard set of plug-ins for our application, but let the user expand it by letting them write their own plug-ins.<br>
<br>
Any ideas? We're not trying to expand Visual BASIC. We're trying to do something similar to the VB Add-In for our own applications.<br>
<br>
Thanks for any ideas you might be able to provide!<br>
<br>
Steve<br>
<A HREF="mailto:sdmeier@jcn1.com">sdmeier@jcn1.com</A>

 

[Snaggs]

Let me give you some more information to draw from. We have a form that's about 6 inches square. On the left hand side there's a treeview, on the right hand side is where the plug-in will go. As the shell program loads, it needs to load the appropriate plug-ins. I can figure out how to make it determine which ones to load, I just need to know how to load them or what a plug-in looks like. I looked at Netcapes Plug-In documentation and it's a little more elaborate than we wish to tackle. The main reason is that the user has to be able to build a plug-in.<br>
<br>
When the plug-in loads, it puts its name in the tree on the left hand side. Then the shell keeps track of the ones that are loaded so it knows how to hide and show the correct plug-in according to what the user clicked on in the tree-view on the left hand side. The shell is no more than the treeview, the 6 inch square form and a container to hold the plug-in.<br>
<br>
Hope that gives you a better idea of what we're trying to do.<br>
<br>
Steve<br>
<A HREF="mailto:sdmeier@jcn1.com">sdmeier@jcn1.com</A>

 

[DougP]

There is a Toolbar .OCX that can be added. This is a good one to use.<br>
You can add or delete buttons and it can be positioned on either side or top or bottom.<br>
Add pictures and tool tips <br>
Its in the &quot;Microsoft Windows Common Control&quot; components.<br>
COMCTL32.OCX<br>
Which by the way has the Tree View and List view in it too.<br>