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Coffee consists of a client, CoffWat2, and two ActiveX components (OLE servers), Coffee2 and MTCoffee. Together, these three projects demonstrate:
╖ Asynchronous notifications using events (Coffee2).
╖ Asynchronous notifications using call-back methods (Coffee2).
╖ Multithreading (MTCoffee).
XTimers.vbp is a helper project that provides a code-only timer used by Coffee2 and MTCoffee.
This is an expanded version of the project developed in the step-by-step procedures in Chapter 3, "Creating an ActiveX Exe Component," of Creating ActiveX Components. For more information on asynchronous notifications and multithreading, see Chapter 8, "Building Code Components."
File Description
CoffWat2.vbp The CoffeeWatch client project.
CWMod1.bas Startup code for the project.
CWForm1.frm The clientÆs main form.
ICoffNot.cls The ICoffeeNotify interface
used for call-back methods.
CWNotMe.cls NotifyMe object implements the
ICoffeeNotify interface, so it
can receive call-backs.
CWThread.frm Client form for demonstrating
multithreading.
CWCofTrk.cls The CoffeeTracker object used
to wait for completion events
from the multithreaded Coffee
object.
Coffee2.vbp The Coffee2 component project.
Co2Cmon.cls The CoffeeMonitor class used
to demonstrate asynchronous
notifications using events.
Co2Conn.cls The Connector class that lets
multiple clients share a
CoffeeMonitor object.
Co2CMon2.cls The CoffeeMonitor2 class used
to demonstrate asynchronous
notifications using call-back
methods.
Co2Conn2.cls The Connector2 class that lets
multiple clients to share a
CoffeeMonitor2 object.
Co2Mod1.bas Holds a reference to the
shared CoffeeMonitor and
CoffeeMonitor2 objects.
MTCoffee.vbp The MTCoffee component
project.
MTCoffee.cls The multithreaded Coffee
object.
MTCMod1.bas A standard module for
demonstrating instancing of
global data.
XTimers.vbp The call-back timer project.
XTimer.cls XTimer object.
XTimerS.bas Support module for XTimer.
AboutCof.txt This document.
To Run
Although there's not a lot of code in it, this is a complex sample to run, because it demonstrates out-of-process components. For debugging, an out-of-process component must be run in a separate copy of Visual Basic.
In addition, the sample demonstrates features (multithreading and code-only timers) that either cannot be demonstrated in, or are dangerous to run in, the development environment.
1. Load XTimers.vbp into Visual Basic. On the File menu, select Make XTimers.dll to make the project into a .dll file.
IMPORTANT: DO NOT run XTimers in the development environment at this time. XTimers must be compiled because it uses Windows APIs for a code-only timer object.
2. Load MTCoffee into Visual Basic. On the Project menu, select References to open the References dialog box. Select XTimers and click OK, to set a reference to the compiled DLL.
3. On the File menu, select Make MTCoffee.exe to make the project into an .exe file.
IMPORTANT: DO NOT run MTCoffee in the development environment at this time. You need to make the project because the development environment canÆt support multiple threads of execution; if you run MTCoffee within Visual Basic, it wonÆt display multithreading behavior.
4. Load Coffee2.vbp into Visual Basic. On the Project menu, select References to open the References dialog box. Select XTimers and click OK, to set a reference to the compiled DLL.
5. Press CRTL+F5 to run the Coffee2 project.
Use CRTL+F5 instead F5 of when running an out-of-process component project, to ensure that all compile errors are caught before the component is supplying objects to the client. (See "Creating an ActiveX Exe Component," in Books Online.)
6. Start another instance of Visual Basic, and load CoffWat2.vbp. On the Project menu, select References to open the References dialog box. Select Coffee2 and MTCoffee, and then click OK, to set references to the running Coffee2 project and the compiled MTCoffee.EXE.
7. Press F5 to run the project.
After running the sample application and observing the behavior of MTCoffee when it allocates a separate thread for each Coffee object, you may find it instructive to recompile MTCoffee after changing the threading to a round-robin thread pool. (You can find this option in the Unattended Execution box, on the General tab of the Project Properties dialog box.) When using a round-robin thread pool, you can observe blocking and global data sharing between objects on the same thread.
You can also compile Coffee2.exe and CoffWat2.exe, and run multiple clients to observe sharing of the asynchronous notification objects CoffeeMonitor and CoffeeMonitor2.
With multiple clients, the round-robin thread pool means blocking and data sharing between Coffee objects in use by different clients.
To understand what's going on in this sample, see "Building Code Components," in Creating ActiveX Components in Books Online.
To add documents like this to Visual Basic projects, check "Add as Related Document" on the Add File dialog box.
