Active Technology on the Internet
Active technology is an open platform that lets developers create exciting, dynamic content and applications for the global Internet, or for a company's internal network, known as an intranet. The major new technologies provided by Microsoft for Internet programming are described below.
ActiveX Controls
ActiveX controls (formerly OLE controls) are objects that can be inserted into Web pages or any other application that is an ActiveX control container. Examples include buttons, stock tickers, and chart controls.
Active documents
Active documents can be displayed by Web browsers or document viewers. Traditional embedded objects were limited to one page and were shown embedded in the document. With Active technology, the document can be displayed full frame in the entire client area window.
Active Server Framework
You can extend a Web server to provide customized Web pages, using content from a database or customized in other ways by an application that runs on the server. The MFC ISAPI classes provide an easy way to write custom server extensions and filters.
Internet Data Download Services
Data can be downloaded over the Internet using common protocols: HTTP, FTP, and gopher. The MFC WinInet classes make it easy to transfer data using HTTP, FTP, and gopher protocols by abstracting the TCP/IP and WinSock protocols. The MFC asynchronous moniker classes provide a way to download files without blocking and to render large objects asynchronously.
Active Scripts
VBScript and other scripting languages connect controls and add interactive functionality to Web pages. Scripting moves processing from the server to the client. For example, form entries can be validated on the client and then sent to the server.
HTML Extensions
HTML extensions, such as the object tag, have been added to support controls and scripting.