Has anyone used ActiveX controls within a HTML page?
I would like to embed an ActiveX control within a NetBurner HTML page. I can create the page on my PC as a local file, but I am unclear where to put the ActiveX control in the NetBurner environment.
I searched for "ActiveX" in this forum but nothing was found.
Thanks,
Edwin
Has anyone used ActiveX controls within a HTML page?
Re: Has anyone used ActiveX controls within a HTML page?
You do not need to include the ActiveX control in you Netburner project. It just needs to be installed and registered on the host computer. Unless you absolutely need to use an ActiveX control I would try to use a different method if I were you. It is not very common at all these days and will most like be blocked on most users computers by default.
Take a look at some of the AJAX or Flash/Flex projects they can perform just about anything you may want to do in an ActiveX control. If this doesn't seem to meet your needs I would suggest you drop the web interface all together and just develop a custom application.
Take a look at some of the AJAX or Flash/Flex projects they can perform just about anything you may want to do in an ActiveX control. If this doesn't seem to meet your needs I would suggest you drop the web interface all together and just develop a custom application.
Re: Has anyone used ActiveX controls within a HTML page?
Thanks for your reply.
Our need is for Trend charts. I have asked a Java Script contractor to provide a trend chart that has abilities of IOComp's iPLot control and they seem to be stumped. I have yet to see a trend chart that can be updated with live data at 2 times a second and be able to scroll backwards in time over an 12 or 24 hr period.
I went to ESC in Chicago hoping for a solution, but there was only one person there doing Custom Web pages. They had a trend chart and when I asked about contracting with them, he seemed uninterested, weird.
I have looked at the 'stock market' graphs, but they seem static, refresh slowly or ASP.
We currently use the IOComp's controls and were hoping to make the Web pages look very similar to our standard Windows programs.
I thought that if I went to www.xyz.com and their page had an ActiveX control, that the control would (some how) be downloaded to my computer from their server. Is that not the case?
Our need is for Trend charts. I have asked a Java Script contractor to provide a trend chart that has abilities of IOComp's iPLot control and they seem to be stumped. I have yet to see a trend chart that can be updated with live data at 2 times a second and be able to scroll backwards in time over an 12 or 24 hr period.
I went to ESC in Chicago hoping for a solution, but there was only one person there doing Custom Web pages. They had a trend chart and when I asked about contracting with them, he seemed uninterested, weird.
I have looked at the 'stock market' graphs, but they seem static, refresh slowly or ASP.
We currently use the IOComp's controls and were hoping to make the Web pages look very similar to our standard Windows programs.
I thought that if I went to www.xyz.com and their page had an ActiveX control, that the control would (some how) be downloaded to my computer from their server. Is that not the case?
Re: Has anyone used ActiveX controls within a HTML page?
This is just an example of how to embed an ActiveX control in a web page that I copied somewhere from the web. Notice that CODEBASE is assigned a URL. This is the url that is used to install the control if it is not already on the users computer. You could put the ActiveX control on the Netburner and have it installed from there is you wanted or just have the user install it before going to the webpage.
http://flex.amcharts.com/ It's has a free option but there is a link to the website. It's still pretty cheap though and I plotted and scrolled several thousand points in it.
http://teethgrinder.co.uk/open-flash-chart/ This is free and open source. It has many different script interfaces and basically takes a JSON data array to plot the data. I haven't tried it with a large number of points though.
Do you absolutely need a webpage interface though? Or are you using this because it is easy in the Netburner framework. If you don't then I would once again probably use a custom application. Maybe you could describe a little more about what you are trying to do and we could offer up some other solutions that might work out for you. Are you storing all of the data in the Netburner module?
It's kind of funny that you talked about charts though. I have a similar project that is on the back burner right now but I did look at some free or open source solutions using Flash. Take a look at the following<OBJECT CLASSID="clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B" WIDTH="160"
HEIGHT="144" CODEBASE="http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab">
<PARAM name="SRC" VALUE="sample.mov">
<PARAM name="AUTOPLAY" VALUE="true">
<PARAM name="CONTROLLER" VALUE="false">
<EMBED SRC="sample.mov" WIDTH="160" HEIGHT="144" AUTOPLAY="true"
CONTROLLER="false"
PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/">
</EMBED>
</OBJECT>
http://flex.amcharts.com/ It's has a free option but there is a link to the website. It's still pretty cheap though and I plotted and scrolled several thousand points in it.
http://teethgrinder.co.uk/open-flash-chart/ This is free and open source. It has many different script interfaces and basically takes a JSON data array to plot the data. I haven't tried it with a large number of points though.
Do you absolutely need a webpage interface though? Or are you using this because it is easy in the Netburner framework. If you don't then I would once again probably use a custom application. Maybe you could describe a little more about what you are trying to do and we could offer up some other solutions that might work out for you. Are you storing all of the data in the Netburner module?
Re: Has anyone used ActiveX controls within a HTML page?
I will look into those web sites for the charts. Our application is using a Serial interface to a Touch Screen display.
So we do have an interface but the future of things seems to be the 'Web Interface'. We would like to be able to display the screens on any computer in the customer's plant. Allow the operator to interact with the local screen, let the plant manager open a browser and see the same type of screens or perhaps even better screens. Also allow the plant manager to see multiple boxes all from his desktop. We have some requests for integrating our system into other OEM's products, they would like to use an Internet Explorer control in their application and then 'point' that control to our web server. This would allow our application to reside in their system with no effort on their part. Our system could be 'headless' in this type of environment.
Using a special application would require it to be installed etc. while a Web Page app would just run on any computer. Just place the box on the computer network, set the IP address and open a Web page.
"You could put the ActiveX control on the Netburner" The iPlot ocx is about 2,300 kb. which is more than half the Flash (I think) so I doubt it will fit in the current 5282 module we have. But assuming it was much smaller, how do you 'put' on the NetBurner. Do I just copy the file to the HTML directory and NBEclipse will convert it like it does the html pages?
With regards to storing the data, it appears to me that the iPlot control stores all the data on the local computer in RAM.
PS: I thought the " because it is easy " was very funny.
So we do have an interface but the future of things seems to be the 'Web Interface'. We would like to be able to display the screens on any computer in the customer's plant. Allow the operator to interact with the local screen, let the plant manager open a browser and see the same type of screens or perhaps even better screens. Also allow the plant manager to see multiple boxes all from his desktop. We have some requests for integrating our system into other OEM's products, they would like to use an Internet Explorer control in their application and then 'point' that control to our web server. This would allow our application to reside in their system with no effort on their part. Our system could be 'headless' in this type of environment.
Using a special application would require it to be installed etc. while a Web Page app would just run on any computer. Just place the box on the computer network, set the IP address and open a Web page.
"You could put the ActiveX control on the Netburner" The iPlot ocx is about 2,300 kb. which is more than half the Flash (I think) so I doubt it will fit in the current 5282 module we have. But assuming it was much smaller, how do you 'put' on the NetBurner. Do I just copy the file to the HTML directory and NBEclipse will convert it like it does the html pages?
With regards to storing the data, it appears to me that the iPlot control stores all the data on the local computer in RAM.
PS: I thought the " because it is easy " was very funny.
Re: Has anyone used ActiveX controls within a HTML page?
Hi, I have used the "open-flash chart" above to produce Flash graphs in a web page, it works well but the documentation is not very good.
In my case I use a netburner board to monitor and control the A/C and other appliances in my vacation home, the netburner uploads the latest data every minute to my website using a http post command, the php code on the website stores this data in a database, A php web page (on my website, not the netburner) viewed by users generates graph data for the last 24 hours and sends it as JSON data to be displayed in the Flash Graphs, the page uses Ajax to automatically update the graphs every minute.
It should be fairly easy to program the netburner to produce the web page and JSON data directly for a http request, I already had the php website up and running using Flash chart graphs so it was the easiest approach for me to use.
You can view the webpage at http://www.fallingwaters.co.uk/control.php
Bill
In my case I use a netburner board to monitor and control the A/C and other appliances in my vacation home, the netburner uploads the latest data every minute to my website using a http post command, the php code on the website stores this data in a database, A php web page (on my website, not the netburner) viewed by users generates graph data for the last 24 hours and sends it as JSON data to be displayed in the Flash Graphs, the page uses Ajax to automatically update the graphs every minute.
It should be fairly easy to program the netburner to produce the web page and JSON data directly for a http request, I already had the php website up and running using Flash chart graphs so it was the easiest approach for me to use.
You can view the webpage at http://www.fallingwaters.co.uk/control.php
Bill
Re: Has anyone used ActiveX controls within a HTML page?
BillC,
Nice web site, especially the Thermostat graphic. It took me a little bit to figure out how the Temps could be 80°F in Bucks UK.
Nice web site, especially the Thermostat graphic. It took me a little bit to figure out how the Temps could be 80°F in Bucks UK.
Re: Has anyone used ActiveX controls within a HTML page?
Hi maxpower, thanks for your comments about the website, I wish the temp in Bucks was 80° but no such luck, probably wouldnt have a vacation condo in Florida if it was.
I had been looking on the web at other internet enabled thermostats, most allow you to change the settings only by using the thermostat makers own website and this was not flexible enough for my needs ,I also wanted to control other X10 appliances, the netburner approach allows me to do this and more, I am contemplating integrating a Multitech voice modem module so that I can use PPP dial up when the broadband is down and maybe even include telephone control using speech files with numeric keypad tone commands.
Best regards, Bill
I had been looking on the web at other internet enabled thermostats, most allow you to change the settings only by using the thermostat makers own website and this was not flexible enough for my needs ,I also wanted to control other X10 appliances, the netburner approach allows me to do this and more, I am contemplating integrating a Multitech voice modem module so that I can use PPP dial up when the broadband is down and maybe even include telephone control using speech files with numeric keypad tone commands.
Best regards, Bill