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Required Interfaces (COM)

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The table below lists the ActiveX Control Container interfaces, and denotes which interfaces are optional, and which are mandatory and must be implemented by control containers.

Interface Required? Comments
IOleClientSite
 Yes
IAdviseSink
 No
 Only when the container desires (a) data change notifications (controls with IDataObject), (b) view change notification (controls that are not active and have IViewObject or IViewObject2), and (c) other notifications from controls acting as standard embedded objects.
IOleInPlaceSite
 Yes
IOleControlSite
 Yes
IOleInPlaceFrame
 Yes
IOleContainer
 Yes
 See note 1
IDispatch for ambient properties
 Yes
 See note 2 and Ambient Properties for Controls
Control Event Sets
 Yes
 See note 2
ISimpleFrameSite
 No
 ISimpleFrameSite and support for nested simple frames is optional.
IPropertyNotifySink
 No
 Only needed for containers that (a) have their own property editing UI which would require updating whenever a control changed a property itself or (b) want to control [requestedit] property changes and other such data-binding features.
IErrorInfo
 Yes
 Mandatory if container supports dual interfaces. See note 2.
IClassFactory2
 No
 Support is strongly recommended.
  1. IOleContainer is implemented on the document or form object (or appropriate analog) that holds the container sites. Controls use IOleContainer to navigate to other controls in the same document or form.
  2. Support for dual interfaces is not mandatory, but is strongly recommended. Writing ActiveX control containers to take advantage of dual interfaces will afford better performance with controls that offer dual interface support.

ActiveX control containers must support OLE Automation exceptions. If a control container supports dual interfaces, then it must capture automation exceptions through IErrorInfo.

Containers