How to implement a Date/Time generic ActiveX property page in Visual C++

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The following files are available for download from the Microsoft Download Center:

Visual C++ 6.0

Release Date: Jan-21-2000

For additional information about how to download Microsoft Support files, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: Microsoft scanned this file for viruses. Microsoft used the most current virus-detection software that was available on the date that the file was posted. The file is stored on security-enhanced servers that help to prevent any unauthorized changes to the file.

Visual C++ .NET

The following file is available for download from the Microsoft Download Center:
Release Date: June 24, 2002

For additional information about how to download Microsoft Support files, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: Microsoft scanned this file for viruses. Microsoft used the most current virus-detection software that was available on the date that the file was posted. The file is stored on security-enhanced servers that help to prevent any unauthorized changes to the file. ATL allows you to use the property page for an ATL ActiveX control without having to move the MFC DLL.

This ATL project contains two projects:

• DateTimePropPage, which is an ATL project that implements a property page.
• TestControl, which is an ActiveX control that uses the Date/Time property page.

A Month Calendar control and Date Time control are added to the property page dialog box resource of the DateTimePropPage project. This resource is displayed when the property page is invoked. Notification handlers are added to the CDateTime class to handle the case where the date or time are changed through the dialog box controls. Thus, SetDirty(TRUE) can be called, which causes the Apply button to be activated on the property sheet that hosts the property page.

The key functions in the implementation of this project are OnInitDialog, Apply, GetProperties, and SetProperties, which are described below:

• OnInitDialog: Override this function to obtain the properties from the control, and initialize the Month Calendar and Date Time controls of the property page.
• Apply: Override this function to set the properties for each ActiveX control that the property page is representing.
• GetProperties: This is a helper function that is called from OnInitDialog to obtain the properties from the control. It gets the IDispatch interface of the first control, and gets the dispatch IDs of the "DATE" and "TIME" property of the control by calling IDispatch->GetIDsOfNames. It then calls IDispatch->Invoke to get the property values from the ActiveX control.
• SetProperties: This is a helper function that is called from Apply. The SetProperties function is called to set the properties for each ActiveX control for which the properties are being changed. This function gets the IDispatch interface from the control, calls IDispatch->GetIDsOfNamesto get the dispatch IDs of the properties, and calls IDispatch->Invoke to set the properties in the ActiveX control.

The ActiveX control supplied with this sample shows how to use the property page. The ActiveX control has two properties, DATE and TIME. Another ActiveX control that uses the standard Date/Time property page just needs to add a DATE and TIME property to the ActiveX control. These properties must be of the DATE data type.