Hi Folks -

Anyone here ever done an IE add-on with Classic VB?  Know of any resources out
there?  I have
someone asking if I'm interested in doing one, and I'm worried it's a potential
quagmire.

Thanks...   Karl

I believe Steve Easton has done one.  Hopefully he'll check in and confirm
this.

- Kev

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Yep, but not an addin in the sense that it shows in the addins section.

Vista is a pita though.

Example, in a project with a reference to Microsoft Internet Controls ( ShDocVw.dll )

Option Explicit
Dim strAddress as String
Dim WithEvents IE As ShDocVw.InternetExplorer
Private Sub Command_Click()
strAddress = "http://www.google.com"

Set IE = New ShDocVw.InternetExplorer
IE.Navigate (strAddress)
IE.Visible = True
IE.RegisterAsBrowser = True
End Sub

Private Sub IE_OnQuit()
Unload Me
End Sub

Compile the above and launch it in Vista.
The program will open and instantly close because Vista opens
and closes a hidden instance of IE when launched via a program.

However, use Run as Administrator to launch the app and IE will open
and display Google just fine.
However, When launched using as administrator, IE protected mode is Off.
Which is not good.

I have yet to find a workaround for launching IE with protected mode On,
when using Run as Administrator in Vista.


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Steve Easton wrote:
Well, that's what I'm really after.  Need to write something that will show up
there.  I think a "Browser Helper Object" is my goal, though I'm not really sure
what the difference is between that and a "Browser Extension."

(Or am I misunderstanding you, completely?)

Thanks...   Karl

A BHO is different than what I'm trying to accomplish.
Anyway here's a link to the latest MSDN stuff on "reusing"
the browser.
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa155133.aspx

Note that the above link only has code references / samples for VB.NET and C++

My app needs to "control" an instance of IE, because it needs to know if the user has closed
the instance of IE that it has opened, to prevent the "Object has disconnected from server" error.

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Steve Easton wrote:
Bookmarked!  Good resource.

Yeah, really nasty.  I did find this in the GCache, though, and it provides a few
more clues:

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:w4ZFBS3CQc8J:www.avidoffice.com/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-2918/Builder.com%2520Add%2520functionality%2520with%2520a%2520BHO.htm+vbbho&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us

I need to create a sidebar, and "do a few things" there.

It wouldn't by any chance be one that will highlight and convert to hyperlinks,
any phone numbers in a web page would it?


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Steve Easton wrote:
Nope, hadn't run across that one, myself. <G>

I've written a browser extension. It
was a few years ago. Something I made for
a program that only ran in Win9x. I assume
it's the same for XP but I'm not certain.
The difference between a BHO and Extension
seems to mainly be that an Extension has
a button on the menubar.

   The extension wasn't terribly difficult, but it
takes some pretty funky code to set up. The
details are provided in Visual Basic Shell
Programming (O'Reilly).

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mayayana wrote:
Ahhh...  Any notion what a sidebar requires/uses?

D'oh!  Got it on the shelf.  Will take a look!

Thanks...   Karl

   I'm guessing that you mean a band object or
docking window. I haven't tried those, but they're
in the book.

   The original
extension I made was fairly simple. It just called
an applet for security configuration when the
menubar button was clicked. (The idea was to
provide one of the most sorely needed features
(even to this day) for IE: The ability to quickly toggle
between customized security levels from the
browser window without needing to go through
the whole Internet Options mess.)

  The way BHOs and extensions are described in
the VB book, any BHO or extension implements
IObjectWithSite to get a pointer to the current
browser instance, and with it access to the currently
loaded page.

  I haven't looked at my code for some time, and
I expect you're going to figure it out quicker than
I would anyway. It appears that I just needed to
reference vbshell.tlb and provide these four
functions for basic functionality:

Private Sub IOleCommandTarget_Exec
Private Sub IOleCommandTarget_QueryStatus
Private Sub IObjectWithSite_GetSite
Private Sub IObjectWithSite_SetSite

  The IOleCommandTarget_Exec event meant my
button had been clicked so I shelled my applet
in that sub.

mayayana wrote:
A docking window, perhaps?  I dunno, it's the "thing" that History uses, for
example.

Yeah, that is something they never implemented nicely!

Right...  I sorta groked that from a few links yesterday, including source to a
typlib called vbbho.

Show quoteHide quoteI'm wondering if those CommandTarget "things" are only needed/related to the button?
Will probably need to find something else for this sidebar "thing" I need.  (I hate
OLE interface detective work!)

Thanks...   Karl

This /may/ be worth a download. It's a bit dated (y2k), but... who knows..

IE Webamp (How to make Explorer band addons for IE)
http://www.planetsourcecode.com/vb/scripts/ShowCode.asp?txtCodeId=13385&lngWId=1

Ken Halter wrote:
Ah-ha!  Yes!  That's the critter.  So it is a band object I'm needing.  Kewl.  Now I
just gotta figure out how they're doing that.

As for it being "dated," well, you gone to Help-About in VB6 lately? <bg>

Thanks...   Karl

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