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- 14 — Applications of ActiveX

- Online Multimedia with ActiveX

- Singing and Dancing Web Pages: ActiveX Eye Candy
- New Types of Web-Based Multimedia
- Replacing Traditional Helper Applications with ActiveX

- Web-Based Applications with ActiveX

- Searching the Real World with the Web
- Playing Games on the Web
- Educational Kiosks Through ActiveX

- Moving On

#
14 — Applications of ActiveX

by Warren Ernst

When use of the Internet and World Wide Web started to take off in early 1995, most people were using their browsers to retrieve text-based information to their screens, with perhaps only the occasional drawing or photograph along with it. Nobody had a problem with this lack of multimedia on the Web because first, nobody was really expecting anything more, and second, most people didn't have a direct LAN, ISDN, or 28.8 modem connection. Now, most people have Internet access at speeds only fantasized about in early 1995, and the bandwidth currently exists to widen how the Internet is used, far beyond relatively simple text.

However, access to high-speed connections is only part of the solution to moving beyond basic text-file transfer; there needs to be a common methodology to expand these horizons—and ActiveX is the answer. By using ActiveX controls and documents, almost anything that's not simple text can be transferred, used, and interacted with through the Internet more easily than it is now. This data includes not only new forms of files and information, such as audio, video, three-dimensional modeling, or whatever new forms of multimedia come along, but even new ways of using the Internet. ActiveX controls and documents pave the way to create applications for which the Internet is a vital information-gathering and transmitting pathway and that work within popular Web browsers. In short, ActiveX technologies can transform mere Web page sites into Web-based applications that run within your browser and calculate, manipulate, or create new information at your command.

This chapter demonstrates some of the new forms of multimedia and Web-based applications available today by using ActiveX controls and ActiveX documents.

###
Online Multimedia with ActiveX

Multimedia without ActiveX can be tricky at times—perhaps unnecessarily so. To enjoy multimedia with today's conventional Web browsers, plug-in modules or helper applications need to be installed, and sometimes run in another window on the desktop, before enjoying video or audio feeds, virtual reality, or any of the other interesting new file formats.

ActiveX controls and documents reduce the burden on both the programmer and user of new multimedia programs and formats, enabling programmers to create programs and files more easily and users to retrieve and manipulate them more simply. Plus, they allow new formats to be directly embedded in Web pages for a truly new, online experience. This chapter reviews some of the new multimedia formats, ActiveX controls, and documents currently online that demonstrate the power of ActiveX-enabled multimedia.

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Singing and Dancing Web Pages: ActiveX Eye Candy

One of the early experiments involving Java applets included simply making Web pages "stand out" from the rest of the world—normally by programming a little something that was animated, complete with lots of motion and bright colors. These little splashes of ingenuity have come to be called eye candy.

Now that ActiveX has recently been made available to the public, programmers have been devising ways to use ActiveX controls (either those bundled with Internet Explorer 3.0, or new ones of their design) to make eye candy too. One clever and simple use of the included Label control can be found at Nuke's ActiveX Showcase Page at http://www.nuke.com/vbscript/vbscript.htm. Once you get there, click the Matching Game link in the left Frame, then follow the links to play the matching game in the right Frame until you see something similar to Figure 14.1.

Figure 14.1. Although the point of this page is to show off the Matching game, the entire game is an ActiveX VBScript!

I encourage you to play the Matching game itself, but make sure you notice the spinning, scrolling, multicolored text above the game. This text dances because of the Label control that comes with Internet Explorer.

####
New Types of Web-Based Multimedia

Full, 360-degree images with embedded hypertext hotspots have never been seen side-by-side with Web page text before, but with the Surround Video ActiveX control, they appear together now! By jumping to the Black Diamond Consulting site at http://www.bdiamond.com/ and following the Surround Video Page links, you can manually download and install the Surround Video control and view the page in Figure 14.2.

Figure 14.2. Embedded 360-degree images combine with hypertext with Black Diamond's Surround Video ActiveX control.

Once you install it and jump to the Surround Video demo page at http://www.bdiamond.com/surround/demo/demo2.htm, you can pan around the image by dragging the cursor left or right. The cursor will change to a "pointing hand" when it's positioned over a hypertext hotspot; clicking it loads another image.

####
Replacing Traditional Helper Applications with ActiveX

One of the problems associated with new types of multimedia files is the different programs required to use them, with one of these new formats being generically referred to as "Virtual Reality." The Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) is currently being used to allow online users to walk through a three-dimensional landscape or manipulate three-dimensional objects onscreen as if they were holding them in their hands. This ActiveX module, referred to as Active VRML, allows Web surfers to seamlessly cruise these new VRML Worlds while within the ActiveX Containing Internet Explorer 3.0, and it offers a relatively simple way for programmers to embed VRML technology into their own applications.

The Sample site of http://www.microsoft.com/INTDEV/avr/beta/default.htm provides both samples and Active VRML itself.

Another useful ActiveX control lets the Web distribute Microsoft PowerPoint Animation files directly to Internet Explorer, complete with transitions and other presentation attributes, but without the need for PowerPoint itself. Currently, the ActiveX control needs to be manually downloaded and installed from Microsoft at http://www.microsoft.com/mspowerpoint/internet/player/default.htm, but once you do, you can interactively work with PowerPoint files directly with your Web browser. (You'll find examples of how to create Web-based special effects for PowerPoint files in this site as well.) Once installed, you'll find a good set of presentations at http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/bjjohnson/xanimate.htm, as well as at Microsoft itself.

PowerPoint Animations run directly within Internet Explorer just as though they were HTML pages, but since the content is based on PowerPoint, there can be sounds, transitions, and a specific order to the presented information—in other words, there is intentionally no variable path that hypertext normally offers. When making a presentation, however, this is usually beneficial because it enforces the idea of one fact building into another.

The presentation at http://www.threedgraphics.com/compadre/comp_live.html is a good example of what PowerPoint Animations can do. Once you get to this page, click on "Click here to see a full-size (640x480) version of the presentation," and enjoy the show (it might take a minute or two to download).You'll witness smooth, scrolling text or transitions, hear embedded sounds, and follow a presentation just as though you were using PowerPoint, but within Internet Explorer. You can advance the slides by clicking the mouse in the content area or let them advance at their preprogrammed rate.

###
Web-Based Applications with ActiveX

One of the goals of ActiveX technologies is to change the way you use the Internet. Microsoft envisions ActiveX changing the Web from merely a source of static information to a place you jump to and fro to use Web-based applications, almost as though the Web were an extension of your local hard drive. For example, if you wanted to buy airline tickets yourself, you would jump to an airline's Web-based program through a conventional URL, "run" it through your Web browser, and book your flight. The transmittable nature of ActiveX makes this scenario possible.

Unfortunately, there's no ActiveX-based programs yet on the Web that perform such complicated actions. . .yet. In the meantime, there are several smaller, "test" Web-based applications available to play with right now, and "play with" is the operative term. As in the early days of Java applets, many developers have been testing the new technology by creating Web-based, online games using ActiveX controls.

####
Searching the Real World with the Web

Most people use programs to search for things in the online world, but did you know there's an ActiveX-enabled site that lets you search the real world? MapQuest, from GeoSystems Global Corp., is just such a site. Using ActiveX controls, you can send the MapQuest program any street address in the United States; in response, MapQuest displays a map of the location you want. You can also change the magnification of the map to 10 different levels, and interactively pan the map in four directions. Figure 14.3 illustrates what this innovative program looks like.

Figure 14.3. Finding the location of an address has never been so easy! Give MapQuest an address, and it returns with a map. The star indicates the address's actual location.

To try MapQuest yourself, jump to http://www.mapquest.com/ and follow the links to the ActiveX version. Once it loads, click the Find button and enter an address in the Search dialog box (ZIP codes aren't always required, so if you don't know it, don't panic.) Once you click OK, the map in the center of the page will automatically display the map with the entered address. To pan up, down, left, or right, click any of the pan arrows. To zoom in or out of the map, click any of the 10 magnification buttons to a state, city, or street level.

TIP
If you really need the ZIP code of an address and don't have it handy, you can search for it at the United States Post Office Web site ZIP Code Lookup page at http://www.usps.gov/ncsc/lookups/lookup_zip+4.html.

This site also offers a version of MapQuest that doesn't use ActiveX technologies; instead, it uses the conventional Web page/server approach of constantly sending entire Web pages for even a simple panning of the map. Once you check out this alternative version, you'll have a firsthand look at the speed increases to be gained by using ActiveX controls.

####
Playing Games on the Web

The Web is certainly no stranger to users goofing around online, but never before has the online gaming within a Web page been so fast and furious, with the speed and graphics rivaling arcade games. In fact, ActiveX technologies enable this sort of time-wasting, but also pave the way for graphically intensive Web applications to be built in the future.

An example of this new, graphically intensive program class can be found at the Ncompass ActiveX Netscape plug-in sample site at http://www.ncompasslabs.com/ActiveX/index.html. Once there, click the Multi Player Game icon to load the Tank Duel game (along with a new ActiveX control) in the Web page frame on the right. The new ActiveX control that downloads automatically is almost 350K in size, so plan on waiting according to your connection speed, but once it downloads and activates, a Duel image appears.

When it does, click the image and press the Enter key on your keyboard. From the resulting Choose Connection Mechanism dialog box, select Local Network (TCP) and click OK, then click the Create button in the resulting Create Game or Connect to Game dialog box. After a moment of initialization, the game starts and you can begin controlling the red tank in the upper-right corner of the playfield. (See Figure.14.4.)

Figure 14.4. The Tank Duel game represents the first Web-based arcade game with any amount of speed and excitement.

To play the game by yourself, rotate the tank with your keyboard's left- and right-arrow keys, and thrust it forward or backward with the up- and down-arrow keys. Fire your gun with the spacebar. Once you're done moving around and shooting buildings, the Esc key ends the game. Another player can join your game by clicking the Connect button in the Create Game or Connect to Game dialog box,and selecting your computer from the resulting list.

####
Educational Kiosks Through ActiveX

One of the immediate uses of the World Wide Web has been to educate people, and educators have been taking advantage of this resource to deliver text and graphical images to students from across the world. ActiveX technology takes this one step further, since information sources can truly be enabled to interact with people.

Two excellent examples of the kind of interactive kiosks that are possible are located in the previously mentioned Ncompass site at http://www.ncompasslabs.com/ActiveX/index.html. If you are still there from the previous example, click the Interactive 3D Graphics icon in the left frame; when queried, allow the two new ActiveX controls to install in your system. Once they do, the right frame poses two different ActiveX controls that can communicate with each other, resulting in an accurate, three-dimensional rendering of a robotic arm and control panel. (See Figure 14.5.) To control the arm interactively, repeatedly click the directional arrows next to the arm.

Figure 14.5. The robotic arm rotates and lifts by clicking the buttons in its control panel, almost like the real thing.

If you click the Interactive 3D Graphics icon in the left frame (just below the Art Gallery icon), a new control loads that automatically rotates a three-dimensional cube and lets you rotate the cube by dragging the mouse. (See Figure 14.6.) This cube could be a construct of any three-dimensional object, such as a molecule or animal, embedded directly within a descriptive Web page. As a tool for educators, ActiveX controls allow these kiosks to be made widely available across the Internet, permitting common lessons over a wide geographic area.

Figure 14.6. Even though this cube rotates by itself, you can easily change its rotation with your mouse.

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Moving On

This chapter has we explored some of the more interesting ActiveX-enabled Web sites available today. In the next chapters, you'll see the similarities and differences between Java and ActiveX (Chapter 15) and the expected evolution of ActiveX and Nashville, the next version of Windows 95, in Chapter 16.

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