Visual C++ 6 Unleashed

By MICKEY WILLIAMS and David Bennett

• Table of Contents
  • Copyright
  • About the Authors
  • About the Contributors
  • Acknowledgments
  • Tell Us What You Think!
  • Introduction
  • How to Use This Book
  • What You Need to Use This Book
  • What's New in Visual C++ 6.0
  • Contacting the Main Author
  • Part I: Introduction
  • Chapter 1. The Visual C++ 6.0 Environment
  • Part II: MFC Programming
  • Chapter 2. MFC Class Library Overview
  • Chapter 3. MFC Message Handling Mechanism
  • Chapter 4. The Document View Architecture
  • Chapter 5. Creating and Using Dialog Boxes
  • Chapter 6. Working with Device Contexts and GDI Objects
  • Chapter 7. Creating and Using Property Sheets
  • Chapter 8. Working with the File System
  • Chapter 9. Using Serialization with File and Archive Objects
  • Part III: Internet Programming with MFC
  • Chapter 10. MFC and the Internet Server API (ISAPI)
  • Chapter 11. The WinInet API
  • Chapter 12. MFC HTML Support
  • Part IV: Advanced Programming Topics
  • Chapter 13. Using the Standard C++ Library
  • Chapter 14. Error Detection and Exception Handling Techniques
  • Chapter 15. Debugging and Profiling Strategies
  • Chapter 16. Multithreading
  • Chapter 17. Using Scripting and Other Tools to Automate the Visual C++ IDE
  • Part V: Database Programming
  • Chapter 18. Creating Custom AppWizards
  • Chapter 19. Database Overview
  • Chapter 20. ODBC Programming
  • Chapter 21. MFC Database Classes
  • Chapter 22. Using OLE DB
  • Chapter 23. Programming with ADO
  • Part VI: MFC Support for COM and ActiveX
  • Chapter 24. Overview of COM and Active Technologies
  • Chapter 25. Active Documents
  • Chapter 26. Active Containers
  • Chapter 27. Active Servers
    • Active Servers Introduction
    • Three-Tier Development Using Server Components
    • MFC Versus Active Template Libraries
    • Designing an MFC Miniserver
    • Designing an MFC Automation Server
    • Summary
  • Chapter 28. ActiveX Controls
  • Part VII: Using the Active Template Library
  • Chapter 29. ATL Architecture
  • Chapter 30. Creating COM Objects Using ATL
  • Chapter 31. Creating ActiveX Controls Using ATL
  • Chapter 32. Using ATL to Create MTS and COM+ Components
  • Part VIII: Finishing Touches
  • Chapter 33. Adding Windows Help
  • Part IX: Appendix

MFC Versus Active Template Libraries

Before we get into the meat and potatoes of actually coding some of these servers, it's important to understand at least a few of the reasons why Microsoft has released a set of templates for developing active components (which includes automation servers, full servers and miniservers, containers, and controls).

MFC is a great class hierarchy, but it can be too large for some types of applications. This is especially true when you're creating small active components that you want to display on your Web site. It's a real annoyance spending 20 minutes downloading support DLLs that don't need to be there. If you decide to statically link an MFC control or component, the result is a very large DLL, EXE, or OCX.

So, after much debate, it was decided that a newer, leaner class library would be created. This class library initially was released with Microsoft Visual C++ 4.2 and is called the Active Template Library (ATL).

Now, for those of you who have ever done any programming with templates from the standard C++ library, you'll appreciate the beauty of this class library. It's a great solution for creating tight DLL or EXE components, because it doesn't use MFC at all (unless you specially include it). ATL is discussed in more detail in Part VII, "Using the Active Template Library."

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