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sglanger

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ActiveX support for Mac and Unix

two questions :

a) Does the IE4 port for the Mac support ActiveX and ADO
(specifically, will the ASP forms I have that talk to an
Access database work on Mac like they do on Win95)?

b) Same question for UNIX

Avatar of MasseyM
MasseyM

Active Server Pages are Server-Side dependant... So, the server is the only thing that must support Windows.  The browser does not matter to ASP because all you see in the browser is the results from the ASP operation.  As for the ADO, the same is true...

- Matt
Avatar of sglanger

ASKER

I'm sorry Matt, but that is certinaly not true. If I use
Netscape to look at the database that you helped me with earlier, _nothing_ is rendered.

In fact at least one company (NCompass) makes the ScriptActive plugin for Netscape, but they say at
http://www.ncompasslabs.com/wwwroot/plugin1.htm

that this only works for Win95 and NT versiond of Netscape cuz Microsoft has not fully deployed ActiveX on Mac/Unix.


The scripts on the server (especially the database connectivity) are all ran at the server... HTML is then output.. Make sure your HTML is correct and that you don't have tables set up incorrectly (Netscape is a stickler on table formatting ... You must have the </TD> and </TR> tags.)

There is no reason to have to use an ActiveX control on a client machine...

When I tested the script I wrote for you, I was using IE4.x...

If you mean client side ActiveX controls (one's that are referenced in your HTML files or the output of your ASP pages) then

1. I don't know about Mac

2. I'm pretty sure this is right: IE on X Window (UNIX) does support client side ActiveX controls compiled for UNIX (not many of those around, but you could port your own C/C++ ones using MainWin XDE - see http://www.mainsoft.com)

As MasseyM says, if you're only using ActiveX controls on the server, and don't render them into your HTML pages, then "Who cares".

Perhaps my original question wasn't _explicit_ enough. I thought
that
"specifically, will the ASP forms ... still work "

implied that I was talking about ASP content _on the client_

Of course if all the ActiveX is on the server and pure HTML is
sent to the browser, I'd hope it would work with any browser.
But I've got things like the following (generated by MS-Access)

<OBJECT ID="Text29"
CLASSID="CLSID:978C9E23-D4B0-11CE-BF2D-00AA003F40D0"
STYLE="TOP:319;LEFT:14;WIDTH:57;HEIGHT:22;ZINDEX:13;">
<PARAM NAME="BackStyle" VALUE="1">
<PARAM NAME="BackColor" VALUE="12632256">
<PARAM NAME="Caption" VALUE="in_1:">
<PARAM NAME="ParagraphAlign" VALUE="2">
<PARAM NAME="ForeColor" VALUE="0">
<PARAM NAME="FontHeight" VALUE="160">
<PARAM NAME="FontWeight" VALUE="700">
<PARAM NAME="Font" VALUE="MS Sans Serif">
<PARAM NAME="FontName" VALUE="MS Sans Serif">
<PARAM NAME="Size" VALUE="1482;572">
<PARAM NAME="SpecialEffect" VALUE="0">
<PARAM NAME="VariousPropertyBits" VALUE="8388635">
<PARAM NAME="FontEffects" VALUE="1">
</OBJECT>


I assume that the ability to handle these "objects"
is what NCompass provides in its plugin for Windows-Netscape.

I have now gotten IE 3 on both 68K and PPC Mac, and
it does not render my data entry forms. I'll try IE4
next.


Perhaps my original question wasn't _explicit_ enough. I thought
that
"specifically, will the ASP forms ... still work "

implied that I was talking about ASP content _on the client_

Of course if all the ActiveX is on the server and pure HTML is
sent to the browser, I'd hope it would work with any browser.
But I've got things like the following (generated by MS-Access)

<OBJECT ID="Text29"
CLASSID="CLSID:978C9E23-D4B0-11CE-BF2D-00AA003F40D0"
STYLE="TOP:319;LEFT:14;WIDTH:57;HEIGHT:22;ZINDEX:13;">
<PARAM NAME="BackStyle" VALUE="1">
<PARAM NAME="BackColor" VALUE="12632256">
<PARAM NAME="Caption" VALUE="in_1:">
<PARAM NAME="ParagraphAlign" VALUE="2">
<PARAM NAME="ForeColor" VALUE="0">
<PARAM NAME="FontHeight" VALUE="160">
<PARAM NAME="FontWeight" VALUE="700">
<PARAM NAME="Font" VALUE="MS Sans Serif">
<PARAM NAME="FontName" VALUE="MS Sans Serif">
<PARAM NAME="Size" VALUE="1482;572">
<PARAM NAME="SpecialEffect" VALUE="0">
<PARAM NAME="VariousPropertyBits" VALUE="8388635">
<PARAM NAME="FontEffects" VALUE="1">
</OBJECT>


I assume that the ability to handle these "objects"
is what NCompass provides in its plugin for Windows-Netscape.

I have now gotten IE 3 on both 68K and PPC Mac, and
it does not render my data entry forms. Ditto for IE4
for 68K and PPC Mac. So the question is, who makes
the Mac/UNIX object library to render text, text fields,
buttons and other really exotic stuff ;^)


1. This won't work on Mac/UNIX because the CLSID is the unique ID of the ActiveX control which is for Windows.  What you need is an ActiveX control with the exact same functionality (or pretty close) on these other platforms.  You then have to change the CLSID in the HTML to match the control you have for that platform.

2. I don't no of anybody making these controls for Mac/UNIX, so I'd guess you'd have to author the control yourself.

3. NCompass does provide the ability to run ActiveX controls in the windows version of netscape, you may need to mess around with your HTML a little though (the sample you gave looks okay, but you need to check all of em) to make it work on both browsers.

"2. I don't no of" should say "2. I don't know of"
So basically what you are saying Answers2000, is that we have
Access 97 generating totally non-portable (with regard to
OS) pages, and I'll have to re-write everything by hand.

Or, make a custom set of classes that mimic the Class IDs
used by Access 97.

If you want to cast that as an answer you can have the fifty
points. I guess coming from Redmond, I should expect no
better.
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Answers2000

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