Internet Explorer 5.5 Demos : Rendering Behaviors (IE 5.5)

Description: Rendering behaviors enable you to perform custom drawing on a Web page using the Graphics Device Interface (GDI) or a drawing object such as Microsoft DirectDraw or Microsoft Direct3D. You might use rendering behaviors to provide a custom background or highlighting for elements, for instance, or to provide guidelines for laying out a page in a what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) editor.

More Details
Rendering behaviors are extensions of binary behaviors. To use a rendering behavior, you must:
Implement the basic structure of a binary behavior.
Implement the rendering behavior within the binary behavior.
Attach the rendering behavior to an element on a page.
A binary behavior has two basic components: the binary behavior itself, and a class factory to create the binary behavior. Attach a binary behavior to an element by giving MSHTML a reference to the behavior's factory, which is an implementation of IElementBehaviorFactory. MSHTML then calls on the factory to create the IElementBehavior interface for the behavior itself. From IElementBehavior, MSHTML automatically calls QueryInterface , requesting an IHTMLPainter interface pointer to determine if the behavior is also a rendering behavior.

Once MSHTML has a pointer to IHTMLPainter, it calls IHTMLPainter::GetPainterInfo. IHTMLPainter::GetPainterInfo provides MSHTML with information about how to draw a rendering behavior, including:

How it is to be layered in relation to the element. Whether it uses the GDI or another object (such as DirectDraw) for drawing.
Whether it is opaque or transparent.
Whether your behavior responds to events.
Whether your behavior draws outside the element.
After the call to IHTMLPainter::GetPainterInfo, MSHTML is ready to draw the behavior. When the system needs to paint or repaint the area of the screen occupied by the element to which the behavior is attached, MSHTML calls the IHTMLPainter::Draw method of your IHTMLPainter implementation. If your behavior responds to events, MSHTML calls IHTMLPainter::HitTestPoint whenever an event occurs in the rendering behavior's drawing area. MSHTML also calls IHTMLPainter::OnResize whenever the window containing your element is resized.

The first step in implementing a rendering behavior is to implement the IElementBehavior and IElementBehaviorFactory interfaces needed to get a binary behavior up and running. If the behavior is to handle events, it also must implement an event sink, derived from IDispatch , to intercept and handle events occurring on the element. If a behavior will be used on a Web page, the factory should implement IObjectSafety, which defines the behavior's security level. A binary behavior used in an application hosting MSHTML would not need to implement IObjectSafety.

Once the binary behavior framework is complete, implementing a rendering behavior involves implementing just one more interface, IHTMLPainter, over those that are necessary for a binary behavior. IHTMLPainter must be implemented on the same object that implements IElementBehavior, since MSHTML calls QueryInterface from the IElementBehavior interface to find it.

Browser/Platform Compatibility
The Rendering Behaviors sample requires Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 or later on the Win32 platform. For developers, header and library files for Internet Explorer 5.5 or later are needed for use in your development environment; in particular, Mshtml.h and Mshtmdid.h are necessary.

Usage
The sample for this tutorial provides a simple example of a rendering behavior. It demonstrates some important features that rendering behaviors provide and implementation details to consider: How you can use the GDI to draw directly on a Web page. How a behavior can specify the z-order in which it is to be layered with the element.
How a behavior can draw outside the element to which it is attached. How a rendering behavior can intercept and handle mouse events, including events outside the element itself. The specifications of this behavior are as follows:

The rendering behavior initially draws a blue rectangular polygon over an element with black circular handles centered on each corner of the element.
The handles can be dragged to reshape the polygon. The color of a handle changes to yellow while being dragged. The rendering behavior draws outside the boundaries of the element by a small amount equal to the handle radius.
The rendering behavior restricts mouse movements to the confines of the element whenever a handle is dragged.
The source code for this sample is included in a Microsoft Visual C++ 6 workspace. It uses ATL to provide COM support, standard implementations of some of the standard interfaces, and "smart" interface pointers that handle their own reference counting. You can use this sample as a structure for building your own rendering behaviors.

Note: You will need to include the Windows 2000 Headers and Libraries from the Platform SDK in your development path when building this sample.

Running the sample:

If you decide to run the sample from Visual C++, make sure that your computer's path settings correspond to the sample project folder. In Visual C++, choose Settings from the Project menu, click the Debug tab, and change the path in the Program Arguments field to match the path location of the Render.htm file in your Renderproject folder (for instance, "C:WorkshopDownloadsSamplesInternetie55RenderBehaveRenderproject").
OR
Open Render.htm with your Internet Explorer 5.5 browser.