Any Hope For COM Support?

Karbon · Post by **Karbon** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 7:53 pm

I know, I know, you guys hate me for asking this *again*

I've been around here long enough to know the answer to the question, but I like to buzz in the ear of Fred & Co every now and then about it.

The lack of *easy* *native* COM/ActiveX support is the single biggest thing holding PureBasic back from joining "mainstream" programming languages. The GUI designer and editors are at serious production quality but the inability to use any 3rd party controls (and most DLLs) really sucks.

There are *so* many wheels that we don't have to reinvent but unless I missed a rather large part of the PB4 release notes, we can't use any of them with PB.

No need to post about how much COM sucks or how great PureBasic is, I know all that, and the greatness of PB doesn't negate the need for COM support. That is probably the single biggest benefit PB5 could give us, now that we have virtually everything else. I am under no illusions as to the scope of what I'm asking, either, but I still hope to see it happen in the next couple of years!

Thanks guys!

Post by **Fred** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 7:59 pm

With the new pseudotypes (p-bstr, p-unicode and p-variant) combined with interface, it should be easy to access the COM components, no ? You will have to convert the interfaces and constant from the C header, but i don't see any other possibility for that.

Karbon · Post by **Karbon** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 8:06 pm

I'm speaking more of controls than just DLLs. How would one go about adding support for a new control with Interface, or is that even possible?

Post by **Fred** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 8:09 pm

Then i didn't understood your first post at all

. What that does means ?

but the inability to use any 3rd party controls (and most DLLs) really sucks.

The controls activex are just DLL and once you have created an object instance, it's just interface call.. If some components needs implemented interfaces, it will be harder, but if you ask gently it could have a solution in a future time

. Now, creating a COM component is another story...

Karbon · Post by **Karbon** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 8:10 pm

Supporting a control's custom events and such is what I mean.

Karbon · Post by **Karbon** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 8:12 pm

And by "control" I mean Gadget in PB-speak.

Like this :

http://www.devexpress.com/Products/ActiveX/XEditors/

theNerd · Post by **theNerd** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 8:55 pm

Fred, I'm asking nicely. Pleeeeeeaaaase!!! I'd love to use ActiveX controls .

... and I'm only one step away from begging.

Karbon · Post by **Karbon** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 8:57 pm

Again I'd like to say that this is a *huge* technical undertaking for PB to support. I don't want to make it seem like a little request. I really do realize how big a deal this would be!

theNerd · Post by **theNerd** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 8:58 pm

Karbon wrote:And by "control" I mean Gadget in PB-speak.

Like this :

http://www.devexpress.com/Products/ActiveX/XEditors/

DevExpress has very nice ActiveX controls. Their grid control is great and is *very* fast.

Karbon · Post by **Karbon** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 9:00 pm

Yep. I'm using XtraReports in a .NET project and loving it. Fantastic product.

I'm using GridEX from www.janusys.com too, they have an ActiveX version as well.

theNerd · Post by **theNerd** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 9:06 pm

Karbon wrote:I'm using GridEX from www.janusys.com too, they have an ActiveX version as well.

I own that one as well. I have the ActiveX version from several years ago. I actually have quite an investment in ActiveX controls.

Yogi Yang · Post by **Yogi Yang** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 12:15 pm

I am for adding support for ActiveX as that opens up a complete world of highly tuned and well performing controls (widgets) which are better than what is available in PB as PureLib. I use HiEdit a word processing component which is just superb and in all my applications where RTF has to be edited I use it freely as I just have to drop the control on a form in VB and set a few properties. That is it! Can such a thing be possible with Widgets? Definately no.....

Can't we implement something like an ActiveX wrapper meaning users will have to import an ActiveX in PB which will in turn generate a wrapper which is pure PB code like what is happening in Delphi, C++ Builder, RealBASIC. This would be easier. There is company (in fact was as the company as it has closed office now) which has released a library (JACOMPB) for hosting ActiveX controls in PoweBasic I think that can be converted to PB.

There is a website www.hellobasic.com. The owner of this website has develooped a GUI building tool PBDev which is like VD that comes with PB, but much easier to use and manage. I think his help can be take for implementing ActiveX wrapper he has implemented such a thing for PowerBasic in his product PwrDev which is for PowerBasic.

These ideas are just my few cents....

So if someone does not like what I have written plz. do no scream you head off

.

dmoc · Post by **dmoc** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 2:25 pm

Hey Karbon c'mon, grovel!

Post by **Dare2** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 3:41 pm

Karbon · Post by **Karbon** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 6:23 pm

dmoc wrote:Hey Karbon c'mon, grovel!

Grove?