Installation of object code and necessary controls. Before attempting to install the source code, install the object code of the Professional Edition of IFs on the target machine (i.e., installed the Professional Edition). The object code of IFs normally is installed into a subdirectory called International Futures or IFs in the C:\Program Files directory of your hard drive. The installation process will place a number of necessary controls onto other directories (including Windows\System) of the target machine. Among the controls installed are a set of ActiveX controls that were part of VB 4.0 and VB 5.0, that are used by IFs, but that are not installed by VB 6.0 (AniBtn32.ocx; Gauge32.ocx, Graph32.ocs, Gsw32.EXE, Gswdll32.dll, Grid32.ocx, KeySta32.ocx, Spin32.ocx, and Threed32.ocx). Please note, however, that installation of a run-time copy of IFs will not register all of these controls for design-time use (see subsequent steps).
Install Visual Basic 6.0 on the target machine. As of early 2005, Service Pack 6 was available for VB 6 and it should also be installed. Design use of IFs requires a license for Visual Basic 6.0 Professional from Microsoft.
Design-time registration of controls. As noted above, there are some controls used by IFs that were part of VB 4.0 and VB 5.0 but are not installed and registered for design-time use by VB 6.0 (see the list in parentheses in step 1). The contorls can be found in the Common\Tools\VB\Controls directory of the VB 6.0 installation disk and the ReadMe.txt file (reproduced at the end of this write-up) describes their registration. In January 2005 these were also added to a VB Old Controls subdirectory of the IFs development directory. It is necessary to copy these files to your Windows\System directory and register them. There are several ways to register them. It can apparently be done from within Visual Basic. The ReadMe.txt below suggests using RegSvr32.exe (execute this program with each of the controls as a target or drag and drop the controls onto the control) – this procedure seems to work. The ReadMe.txt also says you can also use RegEdit.exe (apparently you can register them all at once by by executing RegEdit with Vbctrls.reg as the target). In January 2005 it seemed to be necessary to drag and drop the Graph32.ocx unto RegEdit.exe (within /System) to get it registered correctly. Although it should not be necessary to use, the set-up wizard that creates the object code installation CAB file also creates a directory named Support that contains copies of all of the installed files (including the controls from earlier VB versions); these constitute a secondary location for finding components that may somehow be missing.
Installation of source code. The CD-ROM includes all of the source code necessary to run and modify International Futures (subject to provisions of the license agreement). In order to keep the source code separate from the ojbect code, it is highly recommended that you copy all of the directories and files from the CD-ROM into a subdirectory (IFs) of a directory called C:\My Documents on your hard drive. (If you copy the source code into another location, it will be necessary to change code specifying StartDirec$ in the Form-Load routine of the frm_IFs.) The CD-ROM does not include a setup or install routine. You simply copy the IFs directory and all of its files and subdirectories to the C:\My Documents directory.
IFs.ini. The IFs.ini file needs to be on the Windows directory for both development and use of the model.
Inetwh32.dll. This file needs to be on the system32 directory in order to allow use of IFsHelp. The SetBrows file also should be there.
Additional software required. IFs also requires a license for MapObjects 3.0 from ESRI. This software must be installed prior to your use of IFs. IFs also uses components from Total VB Statistics from FMS. If you have installed the object code of IFs successfully and followed the above steps, your machine should have the needed components from FMS.
Initiating use of IFs. Once all of the needed software is installed, start Visual Basic. Initiate a New Project. Select the Existing tab and browse for IFs (presumably on C:\My Documents\). Go to the Code subdirectory of IFs and you should find the file IFs.vbp (the Visual Basic master program file for IFs). Activate it with a double click and all of the files of IFs should be read into Visual Basic. If you receive error messages during this process, make a note of them and continue if possible; you may still having missing components in your projects (see the next step).
Earlier use of ESRI MapObjects. At one time MapObjects was used instead of Blue Marble’s GeoObjects. The following instructions will be unnecessary unless IFs has returned to its use: Check to see if ArcExplorer Legend is a selected (checked) component. If it is not (and it probably will not be), use the Browse button to find the needed file, MO2Legend.ocx. If you have installed MapObjects 2.0, you will normally find it in the directory C:\Program Files\Esri\MapObjects2\Samples\Vb\MoView2. After you have selected Project\Components from the VB menu you will be able to use the browser search for it, click on it, and thereby activate it; you should see it appear and checked in the list of components available to your Visual Basic project. You also need to make sure that the component ESRI MapObjects 2.0 is in the project. Scroll down the alphabetical list of components. When you find it listed, make sure it is checked.
Making Sure Components are Available. Before starting to run IFs, select Project from the VB menu and Components from the submenu. Components that you may find checked or should attempt to check yourself are: Desaware Animated Button Control; MicroHelp Guage Control; MicroHelp Key State Control; Microsoft Comm Control 6.0; Microsoft Common Dialog Control 6.0; Microsoft Data Bound Grid Control 5.0 (SP3); Microsoft FlexGrid Control 6.0; MicroSoft Grid Control; Microsoft Masked Edit Control 6.0; Microsoft Picture Clip Control 6.0; Microsoft Window Commons Control 6.0; Outrider SpinButton Control; Pinnacle-BPD Graph Control; SHERIDAN 3D CONTROLS. If you attempt to check a control and are unable to do so, make a note of it, but continue. Some of these may be obsolete for your version of IFs.
Making Sure References are Selected. The following references are selected/checked in my project file (see yours by selecting Project from the VB menu and References from the submenu): Visual Basic for Applications; Visual Basic runtime objects and procedures; Visual Basic objects and procedures; Microsoft Excel 9.0 Object Library; Standard OLE Types; FMS Total VB Statistics 6; Microsoft DAO 3.6 Object Library (before upgrading to Office 2000, it was Micrsoft DAO 2.5/3.51 Compatibility Library). I do not believe it is necessary to have FMS Total VB Statistics 6 in the development environment, but I am not certain.
Starting IFs. After loading IFs and activating the controls it needs in the VB project, select Run from the main VB menu and Start from the submenu. This should initiate IFs. If it does not, make a note of the nature of any error messages or the point at which problems arise. If IFs does start properly, test it thoroughly to make sure that all files and components are available and working. Then you can proceed to edit the source code and change IFs.
Using RoboHelp for Help System updates. The RoboHelp software (company acquired by MacroMedia in 2004) has been used for Help system development. It needs to be licensed, installed, and linked to the latest version of MS Word for development involving updates of the Help system.
The Wise installation software. It has been used for creating installations of IFs on stand-alone machines. In 2004 version 9.02 was licensed. The latest .wse files will identify a number of additional components needed for creation of setup .exe files. These include a substantial number of files for Proessentials graphics. They can be put into the System32 directory.
Although they are not required for the use of source code of IFs, the following software has been very useful in the IFs project:
Blue Sky Software, RoboHelp Office. Used for the construction/update of the Help system.
FMS, Total VB Statistics. Used for creation of the code of the cross-sectional statistics capability.
Visio Corporation, Visio Standard. Used for creation of the flow charts in the Help system.
Readme.txt (from the VB installation disk)
\Tools\Controls
This directory contains all of the ActiveX Controls that shipped with Visual Basic 4.0/5.0 Professional and Enterprise Editions, which are no longer shipping with Visual Basic 6.0.
AniBtn32.ocx
Gauge32.ocx
Graph32.ocx
Gsw32.EXE
Gswdll32.DLL
Grid32.ocx
KeySta32.ocx
MSOutl32.ocx
Spin32.ocx
Threed32.ocx
MSChart.ocx
The \Tools\Controls\BiDi directory contains a Bi-directional version of Grid32.Ocx.
If you have Visual Basic 5.0 Professional or Enterprise Editions installed on your machine, you should already have these ActiveX controls available to you in Visual Basic 6.0.
Graph32.ocx has been updated to work properly in Visual Basic 6.0 and it requires two additional support files: gsw32.exe and gswdll32.dll. You must place the three files together in the \Windows\System directory or the control will not function properly.
If you do not have these controls and wish to use these in Visual Basic 6.0, you can install them by:
· Copy all of the files in this directory to your \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory.
· Register the controls by either Browsing to them in Visual Basic itself, or manually register them using RegSvr32.Exe. RegSvr32.EXE can be found in the \Tools\RegistrationUtilities directory. The command line is:
regsvr32.exe grid32.ocx
· Register the design time licenses for the controls. To do this, merge the vbctrls.reg file found in this directory into your registry. You can merge this file into your registry using RegEdit.Exe (Win95 or WinNT4) or RegEd32.Exe (WinNT3.51):
regedit vbctrls.reg (or other reg files associated with the controls)