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
  • Chapter 28. ActiveX Controls
  • Part VII: Using the Active Template Library
  • Chapter 29. ATL Architecture
    • The History of ATL
    • ATL's Advanced Use of Templates
    • Commonly Used ATL Classes
    • Using the Interface Definition Language
    • ATL Wizards
    • Summary
  • 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

The History of ATL

The Active Template Library was introduced between Visual C++ 4.2 and Visual C++ 5.0. Initially, the library provided support for creating simple COM objects. Known at the time as the ActiveX Template Library, ATL 1.0 made it possible to create small, fast components with a minimal amount of code. The major features of ATL 1.0 follow:

• Capability to create components that take advantage of COM features not available in MFC
• Capability to create components that do not rely on the C runtime library
• CComPtr smart pointer class
• Prebuilt default implementations of standard interfaces

ATL 1.1 includes support for Registry handling via Registry scripts. This release also included a simple ATL AppWizard. The ATL 1.1 release was available from the Microsoft Visual C++ Web site.

Version 1.1 of ATL does not provide any support for Visual components. Support for creating components with a user interface is provided in ATL 2.0, which was released prior to Visual C++ 5.0. Visual C++ 5.0 shipped with ATL 2.1, which added improved integration with the Visual C++ environment, including GUI-based editing of IDL files.

Visual C++ 6.0 includes ATL 3.0, which adds support for components that are OLE-DB providers and consumers. ATL 3.0 also included support for writing Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-ins and Dynamic HTML (DHTML) controls. ATL 3.0 also included an improved interface wizard.

Recently released as part of the Windows 2000 version of the Platform SDK is the Windows Template Library (WTL). WTL adds support for building high-performance GUI applications.

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