This two-part article provides a primer on OLE, some practical examples of its use, and demonstrates some methods for addressing the limitations of PowerBuilder's implementation of OLE.
In Part 1 I provided some background information for OLE and discussed the use of custom controls, in Part 2 I talk about OLE Automation and OLE objects.
OLE Automation
OLE Automation is the interface through which one application (e.g., Microsoft Outlook) makes the methods, properties, and events of its objects (e.g., Folders, Messages, Address Book) available for use within another application. Using OLE Automation, a developer could automate another application (e.g., creating and then printing form letters from Microsoft Word) or they may just use a portion of another application within their own (e.g., using the spell-check capability within Microsoft Word to spell-check text in a control within PowerBuilder).
There are several reasons for this: