The ActiveX standard allows all container objects, such as Forms and
PictureBox controls, to provide certain members
(properties, events,
and
methods) to all controls (including custom ActiveX controls)
that are placed on their surfaces. Some of these members might include, for instance,
Top, Left, Width, and
Height properties, an
Enabled property, a
Move method, and
GotFocus and
LostFocus events.
These ready-made members provided by your control's container object are
all contained in an object known as the Extender that belongs to your custom control.
Your custom ActiveX control will therefore already have certain methods, properties,
and events provided for it automatically through its Extender object. If you had just created
an ActiveX control by putting a new UserControl object into your project
and had not yet implemented any of your own custom members, you would still see quite a
few default properties in the control's Properties Window when you tested it (see Figure
13.5). These properties would be the properties provided in the Extender
object.
FIGURE 13.5 The custom control instance whose properties we are viewing in this test
project doesn't have any custom properties, yet we see many properties provided through
the Extender object in its Properties Window
As control author, you should not be very concerned about the
Extender object's members since they are intended for the developer's
use.
However, you may check the values of Extender properties
in order to find out what the developer or the design-time environment has done with your control.
For instance your control may have a Label whose
Caption represents the Caption of your custom control. As you know it's customary for
a VB control with a Caption property to begin life with its caption equal to the control's
name. You can emulate this behavior by checking the Name property
of the Extender object in your control's
InitProperties event procedure and setting your control's Caption to the value of
the Name, as in the following line of code:
lblCaption.Caption = Extender.Name
NOTE - Standard (More or Less) Extender Properties : The
ActiveX standard recommends (but does not require) that all containers implement the following
Extender properties: Name, Visible, Parent, Cancel, Default.
You may, however, confidently reference all these properties in code without fearing an
error, since VB returns default values for any of the above properties not implemented by a
container.
WARNING - Naming Conflicts Between Extender and Custom
Members : If you implement a member with the same name as an
Extender member, the Extender member will always override
your custom member because the developer will always see the Extender
member and not your custom member.
WARNING - Don't Change Extender Properties in Code : You
should never try to change the values of Extender properties.
You will cause runtime errors or get unpredictable results. In particular, you
may be tempted to use the Visible property of the
Extender object to make your control invisible. Instead of this
Extender property, you should use the UserControl's
InvisibleAtRunTime property.
