Third party software component
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In computer programming, and particularly in Microsoft Windows programming, third party software component refers to a reusable software component developed to be either freely distributed or sold by an entity other than the original vendor of the development platform.
Microsoft Visual Basic spawned the first commercially viable market for reusable software components. Visual Basic's first extensibility mechanism was the specification for VBX custom controls.
In version 4.0 of Visual Basic, the OCX custom control was introduced to replace VBX. OCX was later renamed ActiveX and then COM. In version 7.0 of Visual Basic, also known as VB.NET, Microsoft introduced the .NET Component to replace both VBX and ActiveX. It was still possible to use many ActiveX components in VB.NET by wrapping them in a .NET layer.
See Also
External links
Several of the best known third party component vendors and resellers:
- ComponentOne (http://www.componentone.com/) (Full range of components)
- Xceed (http://www.xceed.com/) (Full range of components)
- FarPoint (http://www.fpoint.com/) (Spreadsheet/datagrid components)
- Infragistics (http://www.infragistics.com/) (User Interface components)
- /n software (http://www.nsoftware.com/) (Internet/e-Business components)
- Software/FX (http://www.softwarefx.com/) (Charting components)
- LEADTOOLS (http://www.leadtools.com/) (Imaging components)
- ComponentSource (http://www.componentsource.com/) (Java, .NET and ActiveX Components Store)
- VBxtras (http://www.vbxtras.com/) (VB6/ActiveX Components and Tools Store)
- Xtras.Net (http://www.xtras.net/) (.NET Components and Tools Store)
The Component Vendor Consortium (CVC) (http://www.components.org/) is a not for profit industry association dedicated to supporting organizations and developers building components and tools for the professional Windows developer.