Mastering PowerBuilder

Displaying HTML Pages using IE's ActiveX Automation Server from PowerBuilder's Window ActiveX Control

If you are running your window ActiveX control in Internet Explorer version 3.0 or greater, your application can communicate with the ActiveX automation server (your window ActiveX control is running in this server), and access its attributes and methods. For example, your window ActiveX control can ask the ActiveX automation server to go back/next/home page, refresh, display the specified HTML page from the same or a different web server or close the browser.

You need to instantiate ContextInformation class and get a reference to the IwebBrowserApp (ActiveX automation server) by calling the GetHostObject() function with an uninitialized OLEObject variable. The following code demonstrates the same technique and displays the home page of http://www.applied-software.com site:

// Object: cb_html_using_activeX CommandButton in w_context window
// Library: product-web.pbl
// Event: Clicked

String ls_ShortName
ContextInformation lcx_Info
ContextKeyword lcx_EnvInfo
OLEObject lOLE

This.GetContextService( "ContextInformation", lcx_Info )
lcx_Info.GetShortName( ls_ShortName )

// Check whether the context is ActiveX control
If Left(Upper( ls_ShortName ),4) <> "PBRX" Then
   MessageBox( "Show HTML Page", "Displaying HTML Page using " + &
            "ActiveX Automation is available only in IE" )
   Return 0
End If

lcx_Info.GetHostObject( lOLE )

If IsValid( lOLE ) Then
   lOLE.Navigate( "http://www.applied-software.com",0,0,0)
Else
   MessageBox( "Show HTML Page", "Error while initializing ActiveX Object" )
   Return 0
End If

Once we get the reference to IwebBrowserApp, you need to call Navigate() function with the URL address. The following picture is the result of the above code:

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