Project Guide Architecture

Within the Microsoft® Office Project 2003 application window, there is a document window for each active project. Each document window hosts an instance of the WebBrowser control, and each instance of the WebBrowser control loads an HTML page that defines the layout and functionality of the user interface.

Note  The WebBrowser control provides browsing, HTML rendering, document viewing, and data downloading capabilities. For more information on using this control in an application, see Reusing the WebBrowser Control in the MSDN® Library.

The default HTML page displayed for Project is Mainpage.htm, which has an associated script file Mainpage.js. The Project Guide 101 download includes both of these files. For a description of the files, see Default Project Guide Files.

The default Mainpage.htm consists of a frameset containing two frames:

• The left frame is the Project Guide side pane that displays the tasks within each goal area and the Project Guide content for each task. Each task in the Project Guide has an associated HTML page that contains the content that should be displayed in the side pane for that task.
• The right frame displays Project views, Project Web Access pages from Microsoft Office Project Server, or custom views.

There is a specialized control to display Project views in the right frame that supports all the viewing and editing capabilities of the traditional Project interface. This control is implemented with an Active Template Library (ATL) wrapper around what used to be the document window in Project 2000. The control can display different views, such as the Gantt Chart, Network Diagram, and Resource Sheet; the user can look at and edit information in these views.

Note  The WebBrowser control is not a true ActiveX control in that it cannot be hosted on any Web page and used in a browser. The control only works when it is hosted on a page that is viewed within the Project document window.

Structure of the Project Guide

For Project Guide tasks that require the user to work in a Project view on the right, the page Right.htm is displayed in the right frame. Right.htm contains only the following lines of code, used to display the Project view control:

<object id="IEControl"
   ALT="Project View"
   classid="clsid:DE44AD54-CF55-4C05-840E-C177F51AE233"
   style="position:relative; left:0; top:0; width:100%; height:100%">
</object>

For Project Guide tasks that require the user to work with Project Server, Project Web Access pages are displayed in the right frame. For more information, see Displaying Web Pages in Project.