Tidy COM Wrapper

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Content

HTML Tidy, ( http://tidy.sourceforge.net/ ) is a great 'library', but perhaps you want to use it from within Visual Basic. To do this, the HTML Tidy library must be 'wrapped' into the Type Library, providing a Microsoft COM (Component Object Model) interface, and this Type Library has to be referenced in your Visual Basic program. Charles Reitzel has provided such a 'wrapper' - http://users.rcn.com/creitzel/tidy.html#comatl .

From Charlie's Tidy Add-ons page, you can download a WIN32 binary version of TidyATL.DLL, together with a brief Visual Basic test program. As the readme.txt in the ZIP file explains, this DLL _MUST_ first be registered before it can be used. After the 'registration' step, running TestTidyCOM.exe ran very well for me.

This got me interested in trying to compile this myself, using an up-to-date version of HTML Tidy library. Charlie has kindly place the source on sourceforge - http://sourceforge.net/projects/tidywrap/ - the code can be obtained by using CVS. You should always check the latest CVS instruction by visiting the page - http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=97170 - but at the time of writing the login and checkout commands were -

cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@tidywrap.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/tidywrap login
When prompted for a password for anonymous, simply press the Enter key, then -
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@tidywrap.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/tidywrap co -P modulename

To determine the names of the modules created by this project, you may examine their CVS repository via the provided web-based CVS repository viewer. Again, at the time of writing the module you need is tidyatl ...

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Prerequisites

1. HTML Tidy library source.
2. TidyATL source.
3. Microsoft Visual Studio C++, version 6 onwards.
4. Microsoft Platform SDK.

I have copied the CVS downloaded sources, and arranged them in two adjacent folders in a working folder :-
C:/Work Folder/TidyCOM - The HTML Tidy library source
C:/Work Folder/TidyATL - The TidyATL source.

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Building

On loading the Tidy.dsw provided in the TidyATL folder, you may be prompted for the location of the tidylib.dsp file. This is in the TidyCOM\build\msvc folder, or where ever else you may have placed the HTML Tidy library source.

The MSVC IDE should now show two projects, Tidy - the TidyATL, and tidylib, the HTML Tidy static library. If you have used the above adjacent folders, or any other source arrangement then you will have to adjust (a) the 'Additional include directories' under the C/C++ and MIDL items. Using the above folder, this can be the relative folder, ..\tidycom\include. (b) the 'Additional library path', to ..\tidycom\build\msvc\$(IntDir), under the Link item.

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Downloads

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