Automation Engr. Faisal ur Rehman CE-105T Spring 2007

Definition Automation (formerly called OLE Automation) is a technology that allows software packages to expose their unique features to scripting tools and other applications. Automation uses the Component Object Model (COM) The objects an application or programming tool exposes are called ActiveX objects. Applications and programming tools that access those objects are called ActiveX clients.

Uses Using Automation, you can: –Create applications and programming tools that expose objects. –Create and manipulate objects exposed in one application from another application. –Create tools that access and manipulate objects. These tools can include embedded macro languages, external programming tools, object browsers, and compilers.

Automation Example Note: Microsoft Agent comes with Windows so automating it can be considered as windows automation MSDN: Office Automation Sample This sample demonstrates automation of Microsoft Agent, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Excel. When referencing the various COM Office assemblies, Visual Studio automatically creates COM runtime callable wrappers (RCW) so you can program against them from within the.NET Framework. Depending on your Office installation configuration, the Office references may not be valid in the project. To update the references: Double-click My Project in Solution Explorer. Select the References tab in the Project Designer. Click Add. In the Add Reference dialog box, click the COM tab. Find the Microsoft Agent Control and double-click it to add it to your project. Repeat to add the references for Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel.