How can I create an activeX in C# control and reference it in a ASP.NET site?

Question

How do I make an activeX control in a C# library project and then reference it in another ASP.NET wet site project?

Answer 1

Hi Igor,

If you're using C#/.NET to build your control and consuming it from ASP.NET you would get better performance (and cause yourself much less pain) by referencing it as a standard .NET assembly, bypassing ActiveX altogether. Hope this helps!

Adam

Answer 2

Is the ActiveX for the client, or for the server?

If for the server, just use a direct reference to the managed assembly (no need for COM).

Re the client, frankly I'm not sure it is a good idea to be writing ActiveX controls - most browsers won't love them. You'd do better with AJAX and DHTML, or Silverlight / Acrobat / etc for something more complex.

[update] So you want ActiveX at the client... my next though would be "can Silverlight access the certificate store?" I can't find anything, though...

Distributing an ActiveX control (for IE) is usually a matter of packaging the dll into a cab, marking it as safe for scripting and safe for activation. You then place the cab on the web-server, and on the bage you have an <object...>...</object> element specifying the source (code-base) of the cab.

I have to stress that this approach is going to be very hit-and-miss; it won't work on many browsers, and will work soem of the time on IE (depending on the user's security settings). I don't recommend it.

A more practical option might be to write a standalone .NET exe that you package via ClickOnce ("Publish" in VS); drop the ClickOnce deployment on the web-site, and navigate to the application. Voila - full .NET code at the client, without the browser issues.

Answer 3

This article seems to describe what you are asking for.