This section contains information about the programming elements used with windowless rich edit controls. The Component Object Model (COM) defines a set of interfaces to support windowless objects. Windowless objects can enter the in-place active state without having their own window, but rather use the window of their container. Consequently, a windowless object uses fewer system resources and gives better performance through faster activation and deactivation. In addition, windowless objects can be nonrectangular and transparent.
A windowless rich edit control, also known as a text services object, is an object that provides the functionality of a rich edit control without providing the window.
The CreateTextServices function creates an instance of a text services object. The text services object supports a variety of interfaces, including ITextServices and the Text Object Model (TOM).