 First Impression 5.0 ActiveX Read MeThank you for your interest in First Impression. This document provides general information about this version of First Impression. IMPORTANT: Please read this document completely before using First Impression. Contents
About the Installation ProgramFirst Impression 5.0 is intended for use in only Windows 95 and NT 4.0. The installation program will not install in any other environment. Previous major versions of First Impression (eg. 2.0) can reside on the same machine as this release of First Impression. The Installer Program can be used to install both trial and working versions of any component. You will be prompted for a valid serial number during installation. If you enter a valid serial number, First Impression successfully installs as a working developer version. The product is installed as a trial (demo) version if you do one of the following:
After the third attempt, the product will install as a trial version. The trial version of a product is NON-REDISTRIBUTABLE and will expire after 14 days. You cannot deploy applications with this version. the trial version displays the About Box every 30 minutes reminding you that you are working with an evaluation version of the product. If you wish to continue evaluating the product after the 14-day trial, contact Visual Components. Back to Table of Contents Installing the ProductThe Setup program creates new directories and copies product files to your hard disk. To install a Visual Components ActiveX control on your hard disk:
Back to Table of Contents What Does The Installation Program Do?The Installer performs the following tasks during the installation process:
Back to Table of Contents After InstallationOnce you have installed the product, you can determine if you have a full version of the product or a trial version by displaying the About Box. This can be done by executing the AboutBox method in code. Text in the About Box tells you whether you are using an evaluation copy or not. After you have successfully installed a full version on your system, you can distribute that OCX to your end-users without worrying that the About Box might display on their system every 30 minutes. If you have any concerns as to which version you are deploying, check the About Box. Back to Table of Contents If you Experience Installation ProblemsIf you experience problems installing this product, please read the file INSTPROB.DOC located on the installation CD. This file contains suggestions for fixing the most common installation problems. If problems persist, contact Visual Components Development Services for further assistance. Back to Table of Contents Distributing ApplicationsPlease read the license agreement included in your package. You are bound by the licensing restrictions contained in this agreement. Back to Table of Contents List of Installed FilesThe following files are installed in the First Impression program directory (VCI\FirstImp5 by default):
In addition, the following subdirectories are created in the program directory to hold sample code or redistributable files.
Back to Table of Contents First Impression README FilesA number of additional README files are provided to provide important information on a range of topics. Unless otherwise mentioned, these README files are located within the program directory:
Back to Table of Contents Redistributing ApplicationsThe table below shows all the files necessary for First Impression to operate properly. If you have purchased First Impression and are deploying an application, you must ensure that the first three groups of files listed below exist on your client's machine and are the proper version. The correct versions of these files are provided on the product CD. If your client's machine has older versions of these files, you should update them.
This first group of files are the First Impression redistributable files. These files may be in the Windows system directory, on the computer's path, or for WinNT and Win95, in the directory specified by your application's Per Application Path key in the Registry Database. The .OCX file must be registered on each user's machine. The First Impression Setup program registers the OCX on your development machine. To register the OCX on the user machines, use the REGSVR32.EXE utilities. These utilities are available from Microsoft. To run these utilities type the following at the command prompt on each user's machine: regsvr32 filename
The second group of files are Microsoft redistributable files necessary for this ActiveX control to operate. Your programming environment should have installed and registered these files. If they were not installed, or they are older versions, the First Impression installer updated and registered them. These files were then copied to the REDIST16 and REDIST32 directories in the installation directory, depending on which installation options were chosen. Copy these files from your development machine to your users machines. You may run the installer again and install only these files. These files must be present on your user's machines. Our ActiveX controls require OLE2 support to be installed on a machine. In order to run an application containing one of our controls you must ensure OLE2 has been installed on the user's machine. The third group of files in the table list the OLE2 files accessed by First Impression. Normally, copying these files to the user machine is all that is required. However, some older Windows 3.x machines do not have the new OLE2 files installed. You must then install full OLE2 support and ensure that these files are properly registered on the machine. OLE2 files can be downloaded from Microsoft. Microsoft's installer should handle registration for you, but you can also register the files manually using the REGSVR32.EXE. The result code from REGSVR(32) will indicate whether any of the files need to be registered. The fourth group of files should be present on any system running Windows. You should not remove or update these files. They are included only to form a complete list of filed needed to use this ActiveX control. Special Note:Some developers develop an application on one machine and then move it to another to build an executable. If you are building an executable containing one of our components, you must be sure that the component is properly installed on the make machine. The license key that is copied from the registry when an executable is built is only available when the component has been properly installed on a machine. Back to Table of Contents Moving the ActiveX ControlDuring the installation process, the ActiveX control and the directory in which it is installed are registered in the Windows Registration Database in Windows 95 and Windows NT. This makes the ActiveX control visible and available to your development environment. However, if you move the ActiveX control to a different directory, or rename the directory that contains it, the information in the registry is no longer valid. This may cause the ActiveX control to be unable to locate its help file. If you find it necessary to move the ActiveX control or rename its directory, use the REGSVR32.EXE utility provided with most Microsoft development products to reregister the ActiveX control in its new location. . The help file must be in your path for the ActiveX control to locate it. Windows For Workgroups and Win32s Registry Databases do not support Per Application Paths. The installer copies these files to the Windows system directory. The ActiveX control, DLL, and HLP files must always be in the system directory or on your path. Back to Table of Contents Using the UnInstallerFirst Impression files can be removed from your system with the Windows 95 Add\Remove Programs Item or by double-clicking the UnInstaller icon in the Program Manager folder. Using the UnInstaller will remove all files and Registration Database entries made during the installation. If you are using Visual Basic, it will create a support cache file (VCFI5.OCA) that must be removed manually. The UnInstaller creates a log of operations during the installation which it "undoes" to "uninstall" the product. You should run the UnInstaller before running the Installer additional times. If you run the installer a second time without using the UnInstaller first, only the options selected in the second install will be written to the UnInstall log and later be uninstalled. For the UnInstaller to work properly, you should reinstall your original options in addition to the options you wish to install. The Windows Start menu is not always updated immediately by the operating system. This means that sometimes uninstalled shortcuts do not always disappear right away. Because of this limitation, an uninstalled shortcut can temporarily continue to appear in the Start menu even though it really has been uninstalled. If you wait for a while, run some other programs, or restart the system, the shortcut should eventually disappear from the Start menu. To verify that the program has been uninstalled:
Back to Table of Contents New Features in First Impression 5.0Internet-Explorer Friendly. First Impression now works Internet Explorer to provide you ActiveX charts for Internet application deployment. FrontPage is the preferred program used for developing Internet applications. JPEG Support. First Impression now allows for charts to be exported as JPEG graphics files. Chart Designer. First Impression now provides the user interface that uses tabbed designer pages in an organizational tree format in order to set First Impression's properties. Complex Bound Control. First Impression is now a complex bound control. Back to Table of Contents Known LimitationsVisual InterDev 1.0 Functionality Script Wizard. First Impression crashes when you are in the Script Wizard and attempt to access any of First Impression's methods in the "Insert Control Window". Solution. You can still write code against the control in the Script Wizard's CodeView window. Context Menu. The Save As and Open verbs invoke the wrong dialogs from the context menu. ActiveX Control Pad Functionality Scrolling. Scrolling an internet page with First Impression in an ActiveX Control Pad HTML Layout may cause incorrect repainting of the chart. ActiveX Control Pad and Internet Explorer Functionality Printing. An internet page with First Impression in an ActiveX Control Pad HTML Layout will not print correctly from Internet Explorer. The chart will be printed as a blank rectangle. Visual Basic 5.0 Functionality Help File Access. Launching our help file from the Visual Basic 5.0 Object Browser or by pressing F1 with a First Impression control selected on the form causes the VB5 help file to launch as well as ours. This causes the Search and Find features to access the VB5 help file and not ours. This is a known bug in VB5. Solution. Microsoft has fixed this problem in the Visual Studio 97 Service Pack 2 release. Install VisualStudio97 SP2 to obtain the fix to Visual Basic 5.0. Back to Table of Contents Visual C++ Programmers Please NoteIn order to use any projects created with a previous version of the First Impression ActiveX control, you need to perform the following steps after successfully installing First Impression:
Licensed Control Information When you place a control on a form at design time, the licensing information is cached in the resource file of the container application. Dynamically creating a licensed control requires license key information.
This would be placed as the last parameter of the Create statement. The first parameter to the call of CLSIDFromProgID needs to be changed to the ID name of the Control you are using. You can obtain this ID by running Regedit.exe and searching for the class name of the control you are currently using. Use that as the string for the OLESTR. //The following example shows how to do this for the First Impression
//ControlPlace this code in a command button on the same form as the
//control.
CLSID clsid;
CString m_strLicense;
IClassFactory2* pClassFactory;
if (SUCCEEDED(CLSIDFromProgID(OLESTR("VtChartLib.VtChart.5"), &clsid)) &&
SUCCEEDED(CoGetClassObject(clsid, CLSCTX_INPROC_SERVER, NULL,
IID_IClassFactory2, reinterpret_cast
Pass the string that the message box contains as the last parameter to the Create function in your dynamically created control's application. Example BSTR LicenseKey = SysAllocString(OLESTR(m_strLicense));
//Use the string value of m_strLicense that was shown in the
//message box
if (VCFI5.Create("First Impression", dwStyle, rect, this, 1000,
NULL, FALSE, LicenseKey) == 0)
return 0;
SysFreeString(LicenseKey);
Back to Table of Contents Using First Impression with Formula OneFirst Impression 5.0 works with Formula One version 5.0. Previous versions of Formula One are not compatible with this version of First Impression. Back to Table of Contents Stand-Alone ApplicationsIn order for drag-and-drop functionality to work in stand-alone applications, you will need to add OleInitialize and OleUninitialize to your stand-alone application. The OleInitialize and OleUninitialize functions need to be added to any C++ application that uses First Impression. Specifically, you should call ::OleInitialize(NULL) in the start up code. ::OleUninitialize() should be called in the exit code of the application. Back to Table of Contents PowerBuilder Programmers Please NoteA keyword name collision currently exists in PowerBuilder with events that have a cancel parameter. PowerBuilder generates an informational error message during compile for applications with OLE controls using such events. The PowerBuilder error message is as follows:
(0006) Information C0148: The identifier 'cancel' conflicts with an existing property with this name. The new definition of 'cancel' will take precedence and the prior value will be ignored until this version of 'cancel' goes out of scope. Action: No resolution. PowerBuilder PTrack Number 343867 Back to Table of Contents Contact Us
Back to Table of Contents Developer ServicesPlease fill out the registration card enclosed in your package and mail it in today. You must register your components in order to gain access to technical support and several other valuable services. By registering your serial number(s), you help accelerate the support process, receive notification of product upgrades, and become eligible to purchase product updates. Additionally, registering gives you access to many free services through the Visual Components site on the World Wide Web at http://www.visualcomp.com. These services include:
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