We should probably take this off-line but here's my ideas at this point - if you want to write a KiXtart COM object that implements customizable forms - you're probably better off with C (not necessarily C++) - just good old ANSI C

I'm not a huge VB fan myself - although I appreciate it for what it is. And the builtin COM support just can't be beat ! But I remember reading an article about creating "Dynamic VB Forms" - you know - a VB app that can dynamically create buttons and boxes (as opposed to creating them in Visual Studio with the forms designer) and the impression I got was that it's really, really tough to do (if not impossible) anyone know otherwise ?

So I would suggest the following tools for doing this ...

1) Visual Studio C++

2) ActiveX Template Library (comes with VS)

The ActiveX Template Library is the best thing since sliced bread. I used to use all the time to build COM objects (I've since switched to a hand-crafted COM library)... The nice thing about the ATL is that it's extremely light-weight and very easy to use... the only other real option is the Microsoft Foundation Class library (MFC) which I absolutely hate (loath). Although like VB, I appreciate it for what it is !!! Plus, the MFC is like VB in that it requires a huge DLL runtime library to be installed along with your app - I hate when that happens. You can "statically link" the MFC into your exe but that just makes your exe a big monster...

Ok - so you have Visual Studio C, you have the ATL and the only other thing you'll need (to understand) is how the win32 window api's work and a basic knowledge of the Windows GDI (Graphics Device Interface).

So I guess the bottom line here is if customizable forms is what you're after - C is the way to go ... now the other thing is this - are there any other languages (out there) that give you the power of C and the OLE support of VB - kind of like the best of both worlds - know of any ?

-Shawn