Women in Technology

Article:		Component Object Model (COM) Development on Mac OS X
Subject:		Well, yes, OK, but
Date:		2004-04-16 20:25:09
From:		kiyookasan
I've spelunked around in the COM header files on MacOS X, and it is fine that there is some kind of COM on X. But here's the problem. Microsoft Office X has its own implementation of COM bundled into the CFM shared libraries that ship with Office, buried in the depths of the directory structure, private (but shared within Office apps) to Office applications. The whole point of COM is interapplication communication. I did my own investigation into Microsoft's support of COM on Macintosh, and the latest official blurb I could find was in the form of an out-of-print book and a MacTech article which included a StuffIt archive of a 'beta' version of the ActiveX SDK (COM's name at that time). Also, at that time Microsoft was hyping support for ActiveX/COM brower plug-ins. Summary: the great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from. Hopefully the new version of Office for OS X will either expose the SDK interface publicly, or utilize the COM headers/API (which you've documented in this article) included in the Apple Developer tools.

Showing messages 1 through 4 of 4.

• Well, yes, OK, but
  2004-04-18 18:37:25  eredhuin [View]
  
  
  Thanks for this commentary.
  
  So is it possible to use the not-quite-apple COM stuff to integrate with Excel using Xcode?
  
• Well, yes, OK, but
  2004-04-21 15:12:54  ChristopherHunt [View]
  
  
  Hi eredhuin,
  
  I do not believe it possible to integrate with Excel using Xcode using the CoreFoundation COM. The methods I describe in my article are more to do with managing your own interfaces.
  
  I am unfamiliar with "non-quite-apple COM".
• Well, yes, OK, but
  2004-05-21 15:10:23  eredhuin [View]
  
  
  Any word if the newest (now released) version of Microsoft Office for the mac exposes COM to the world?
  
  This is the only feature that might make me upgrade. Definitely not upgrading just to include MPEG4 audio inside my word documents.

• Well, yes, OK, but
  2004-04-17 01:13:38  ChristopherHunt [View]
  
  
  Thanks for your comment kiyookasan.
  
  COM is still useful for your own interapplication communication particularly where you find yourself porting code between OS X and Win32. In simplistic terms, COM provides a mechanism to share an object oriented library as a dynamic link library.