Winforms control hosting in unmanaged applications

• US 20060282817A1
• Filed: 06/09/2005
• Published: 12/14/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 06/09/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Styrchak, Stephen James, Shneerson, Michael, Carter, Eric Hyde, Darst, Geoffrey Charles
• Granted Patent: US 7,735,059 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/106
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/20 Software design
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4488 Object-oriented

Abstract

Systems and methods for hosting managed code controls within unmanged hosts, such as MICROSOFT Word and Excel. There are two components to the hosting architecture, a wrapper control that implements various interfaces and a container control that hosts the managed code control. A design-time implementation allows for a designer to drag and drop managed code controls onto documents that run in a design component process. A runtime component allows managed code controls to run within hosts under security permissions specified by a policy.

Claims

1. A method of hosting a managed code control in an unmanaged host, comprising:

providing a wrapper that implements control interfaces and abstracts managed control from a host; and

providing a container control as an intermediary managed object that is container for said managed code control.

2. The method of claim 1, said wrapper providing implementation for methods.

3. The method of claim 1, said container control being an empty WinForms user control.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing message reflection via said container control.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing said managed code control as a child window of said container control; and

sizing and synchronizing said managed code control with said container control.

6. A method of hosting a managed control in an unmanaged host, comprising:

placing said managed control on a document within said host;

instantiating said managed control; and

loading a wrapper control on said document.

7. The method of claim 6, said placing said managed control on said document further comprising persisting said wrapper and in information that describes a type of managed control to be hosted.

8. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

instantiating a container control; and

hosting said managed control within said container control.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein during design-time, said method further comprises instantiating said container control and said managed control by a designer component.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising generating code to instantiate and initialize said managed control at runtime.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein during runtime, said method further comprises:

executing code within said document to instantiate said managed control;

calling a runtime engine to locate said wrapper control on said document.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising running said managed control in an isolated environment.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein opening said document results in said managed control executing to an extent allowed by a security policy.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein said security policy defaults to not executing said managed control.

15. A computer readable medium having stored thereon computer instructions for hosting a managed control in an unmanaged host, said instructions performing the method comprising:

placing said managed control on a document within said host;

instantiating said managed control;

loading a wrapper control on said document.

instantiating a container control; and

hosting said managed control within said container control.

16. The computer readable medium of claim 15, wherein during design-time, said computer readable medium further comprises instructions for instantiating said container control and said managed control by a designer component.

17. The computer readable medium of claim 16, further comprising instructions for generating code to instantiate and initialize said managed control at runtime.

18. The computer readable medium of claim 15, wherein during runtime, said computer readable medium further comprises instructions for:

executing code within said document to instantiate said managed control;

calling a runtime engine to locate said wrapper control on said document.

19. The computer readable medium of claim 18, further comprising instructions for running said managed control in an isolated environment.

20. The computer readable medium of claim 18, wherein opening said document results in said managed control executing to an extent allowed by a security policy, and wherein said security policy defaults to not executing said managed control.