In Review

The first chapters of this guide took you through some basic language fundamentals. That laid the groundwork for the next chapters, in which you started to see how VBScript can tie together a variety of components to make more active pages. You saw a variety of entities and objects that you can control through VBScript, including HTML form controls, ActiveX controls, Java applets, and ActiveVRML. Of course, you need a well-crafted approach to smoothly integrate such components. To help you along the way, we exposed you to some helpful guidelines and user interface techniques. Taken as a whole, the techniques covered in these chapters bring you to the point where you can put together real, productive, active pages. You can do this by taking advantage of a wealth of integrated components, as well as writing your own VBScript code.

Where You Have Been

The chapters started with a look at intrinsic HTML form controls on Day 8. Day 9 addressed more HTML form controls. Then, Day 10 switched to a slightly different type of component, the object. It focused on perhaps the most important type of object to the VBScript programmer, the ActiveX control. On Day 11, you learned about more ActiveX controls. Day 12 addressed advanced object issues, including more sophisticated ActiveX controls, Java applet objects, and the ActiveVRML viewer object. Component download issues were also addressed here. Day 13 switched tracks slightly by focusing on an area very important to good component integration-VBScript standards and conventions. Finally, the chapters ended with a look at working with the document object of a page and user interface functions on Day 14. After making it through this chapters of material, you are past the raw novice stage and have the abilities, with practice, to produce professional-caliber scripts. You still need more tricks, techniques, and even fundamental issues to round out your knowledge, which is the topic of the next chapters.