Compound Document Support

Compound Document Support
The third step in running AppWizard to create an executable Windows program is to
decide on the amount of compound document support you want to include, as shown in
OLE (object linking and embedding) has been officially renamed ActiveX to
clarify the recent technology shifts, most of which are hidden from you by MFC.
ActiveX and OLE technology are jointly referred to as compound document technology.
Chapter 13, "ActiveX Concepts," covers this technology in detail.


FIG. 1.5 The third step of building a typical application with AppWizard is to set the compound
document support you will need.
There are five choices for compound document support:
l If you are not writing an ActiveX application, choose None.
l If you want your application to contain embedded or linked ActiveX objects, such
as Word documents or Excel worksheets, choose Container. You learn to build an
ActiveX container in Chapter 14, "Building an ActiveX Container Application."
l If you want your application to serve objects that can be embedded in other
applications, but it never needs to run as a standalone application, choose Mini
Server.
l If your application serves documents and also functions as a standalone
application, choose Full Server. In Chapter 15, "Building an ActiveX Server
Application," you learn to build an ActiveX full server.
l If you want your application to have the capability to contain objects from other
applications and also to serve its objects to other applications, choose Both
Container and Server.
If you choose to support compound documents, you can also support compound files.
Compound files contain one or more ActiveX objects and are saved in a special way so
that one of the objects can be changed without rewriting the whole file. This spares
you a great deal of time. Use the radio buttons in the middle of this Step 3 dialog box to
say Yes, Please, or No, Thank You to compound files.
If you want your application to surrender control to other applications through
automation, check the Automation check box. (Automation is the subject of Chapter 16,
"Building an Automation Server.") If you want your application to use ActiveX
controls, select the ActiveX Controls check box. Click Next to move to the next step.