Editing VML with MSHTML and WebBrowser Control

[gradiov]

Hi, everybody! I am working on application where I need to provide some VML editing capabilities. I am pretty sure that MSHTML should serve me well here. Also while it provides a pretty easy way of designing HTML it lacks the VML editing capabilities. Right now I am looking into the IHTMLEditDesigner and IHTMLEditHost interfaces and wondering if I am on the right track. Since I have not worked with MSHTML before I would greatly appreciate if somebody could give me a push in the right direction. Thank you.

[Stephane Rodriguez]

The best VML editor I am aware of is.... Office XP. When you save content as html, it adds vml along with mso to produce all vector content. From an outside app, Office automation looks shiny...

[gradiov]

.S.Rod. wrote: From an outside app, Office automation looks shiny... Thanks for the reply. Unfortunatly automation won't do in this case. There is a big chance that MS Office (or required version of it) will not be installed on the target machine. In addition I need much more advanced control over HOW the user edits the document than the automation can offer. Thanks again.

[Stephane Rodriguez]

gradiov wrote: I need much more advanced control over HOW the user edits the document than the automation can offer I am not sure I understand. VML is a rendering format, which means you simply use Word/Excel/Powerpoint automation and edit your document with the standard object model, and only in the end save all that stuff as html+vml. Of course, doing so you don't directly edit VML tags, but for some apps this is more than enough already.

[gradiov]

The thing here is that this is not just any VML document. The user is going to be creating a site plan (sort of the iteractive map) for the security system. As he creates it, he will be adding some predefined objects to it (such as buildings, hallways, rooms, doors etc.) and will have ability to add some misc graphics to it just to make it look pretty. I know how to write my own little graphics editor for that purpose. Also I figured that since there is thing like IWebBrowser control and MSHTML available, I could use it's editing capabilities and it's rederer (which, by the way, displays VML fine) to do the most of the work. After looking in MSDN I was under the impression that I could extend the editor's capabilities by providing my own implementations of several interfaces ( IHTMLEditHost, IHTMLEditDesigner and IHTMLElementBehaviour, is there anything else(?)). Since Microsoft was not very clear on the purpose of those interfaces and none of the samples they had fully worked, I was wondering if going this way would get me where I want to be and if it would worth the effort. Also you keep talking about automating the office application even after I mentioned that there is a good chance that the proper version of the office will not be installed on the client. Am I missing something here and I do not have to ship a copy of the Front Page with every installation? Thanks for you help.