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1.0 out of 5 stars
Pretty face, lousy body, 7 Jun 2005
I bought this book in the hope that it would help me to write ActiveX controls in C++. The first 20 chapters deal with how to write scripts to use other people's controls on the Internet. Not relevant to me, so I skipped them and started reading at Chapter 21: "Creating an ActiveX Control". It took me less than a minute to realise that there was no information of any use to me here - most of the chapter is on the registry.On page 549, I read "Visual C++ has always (until now, anyway) been the language of choice for OLE programmers." This is soon followed by five lines on using MFC, where I am advised "Be sure to include the dependent files with your distribution disks" - by which they mean any DLLs that are required. Then there are six lines on ATL, including a mention of where to obtain the most current version. Yes, you did read correctly - lines, not pages. On the next page there is a brief mention of IUnknown, which says almost nothing about it. The following page has a screen image and some definitions, and, on turning the page, I find the title "Summary". After a further page and a half of questions of answers, we come to - you have probably guessed by now - the end of the body of the book. So, as Amazon's synopsis says, the book DOES cover the building of controls. But basically only to tell you that this can indeed be done. If you would like to know how, well, tough... In fairness, there does seem to be some sample code for users of Visual Basic. "On the enclosed CD-ROM, you should find a sample VB application .. for creating an OLE server in VB4. It does not do anything, but if you view the source code with Notepad, you will see comments about what should be done in a particular part." In Notepad? Why not in Visual Basic? Amazon claims that the book has 900 pages, so you might be wondering what the remaining 300 or so pages cover. Well, actually, the book ends on page number 575. Yes, the copy I have is indeed the one advertised on this page - it has the identical name, publisher, date of publication, and - the clincher - the same ISBN. On the plus side, the book does have a pretty front cover. It will grace my bookshelf, at least.
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