Jack Gudenkauf (JackG) WebLog : Conferences

Microsoft announcement of Silverlight 2 (Devices/RIA/Client)

JackG — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 00:04:00 GMT

Yesterday, Microsoft announced a significant technology advancement in Rich Internet Application (RIA) platform development.

This announcement was significant on many levels from my perspective.

It solidifies (beyond SL 1) the ability to use .Net to develop richer (beyond video and media) web client applications. As you may know, I have had strong opinions on the previous Web development experience (Thin Client - Web Clients).
It clearly shows our effort in meeting customer demands to provide a continuum and compatibility of development environments from Devices to Web and Rich/Smart Client applications. Check out Scott Guthrie's blog post with sample code.
Providing VS designer support and very rich Expression Studio support for the above. This will further empower designers to build rich client applications with WPF and rich media/RIA experiences with Silverlight.

Check out the Mix08 site for more details, including the keynote.

Some of the coolest things I saw were:

The Hard Rock Café demo of zooming in and out of media images and retaining resolution. WPF rocks!
The upcoming Olympics media experience was unbelievable. The demo of multiple channels on the screen, the ability to rewind real time events and PIP (Picture In Picture). Unbelievable. Sniff, sniff, I miss my ability to do PIP on my TV. Sad that with High Def, etc... I had to give up on one of the coolest features I once had.
Silverlights ability to adjust the streaming experience based on my ever changing connectivity bandwidth was to cool for school.

One other note. I watched the keynote live from my desktop and I couldn't help but wonder how the audience could sit their so quietly when so many cool things were being shown on real bits. We aren't talking vapor or demo-ware here. I haven't been directly involved in the SL development effort and granted I work at Microsoft so I likely bring some bias, and I guess I am more excitable than your average person about where we landed on the ability to develop applications in a very compatible way from devices to Web to Rich Client applications (and maybe I had some influence) but can someone tell me why the audience was not as engaged. I mean, PIP - come on people, that's cool stuff! In any event, as a developer/consumer I am thrilled, as a contributor I am proud, and as a user I don't expect I will leave my DVI flat panel dual monitors during the Olympics.

I would love to get your thoughts on where we hit or missed the mark. Enjoy!

TechEd 2007 F.A.Q.

JackG — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 03:38:00 GMT

Hola!

I just returned from TechEd 2007 held in Barcelona, Spain. Barcelona is a beautiful city with incredible new and old architecture. The people are very friendly and even I was able to navigate the clean public transportation systems. Yes, I am one of those people that get lost easily and never stop to ask for directions. I was surprisingly given a beautiful suite overlooking the Mediterranean at the Hilton Diagonal Mar hotel right next to the convention center. I would highly recommend the hotel! Ask for a suite above the 15^thfloor in order to take advantage of the 15^th floor amenities!

I could go on and on about Barcelona, but I wanted to provide some links answering some of the F.A.Q.'s I received.

1. Does the Add-In model support UI extensibility via WPF? Yes, check out my Channel 9 video, as well as the sample code.

2. What is the state of Acropolis? Answer.

3. What about the PAG CAB (WPF and Acropolis)? Answer

4. Does the Add-In model support *in* domain activation, Click-once, custom meta-data, simple sandboxing, WPF isolation, and AddIn to AddIn communication? Yes, these features were added in the final Beta. Check out the “By popular demand link”.

5. Can you tell me more about the WPF Add-In support (e.g., XBAP)? Here is the WPF blog site link.

6. Where do I post WPF control specific Add-In questions? Here is a link.

7. Do you support Out of process activation and isolation of Add-Ins? Do you support Partial Trust Add-Ins in an external process? Can I have some control over the process? Yes, Yes, and Yes. Here is a link to some sample code showing how easy it is.

8. Can you tell me more about VSTA and the differences and/or reconciliation with the CLR Add-In model? Check out these links.

9. What are the rules/constraints of the types that may flow over the boundary? Here is a link to the contract constraints.

10. Where are the Add-In MSDN articles? Here are the links.

11. What about WinForms support? Who do I contact about this support? What about Crossbow? Check out these links and comments; WinForms and MAF link, Crossbow link.

12. Can you do Async programming in MAF? Yes, check out this link.

13. What about ill behaved Add-Ins and unhandled exceptions? Here is a link.

14. Do you have sample code showing Host automation and Events? Yes, check out this link.

15. Where do I get Add-In support? Here is a link.

16. Can you show me more pictures and less text? Can you tell more about the “Pipeline”? Can you show me some sample code for version tolerance, i.e., backward compatibility that supports something stronger than the use of a standard Interface or Abstract base class implementation. Here is a link for all the above questions.

17. Can the Add-In model be used as a dynamic component composition model? Yes! In some respects it was tragic that we used such a contextual naming convention of Host and Add-In, as opposed to component, composition, or automation. I will be posting a sample application that shows the new Beta2 features we added and you will see the basis for a component model within the sample, as well as some code answering another F.A.Q. about the management of components/Add-Ins. Stay tuned to this same bat channel.

If I missed one of your questions please let me know. For those that I met at the conference, thank you for your support and thoughtful questions as well as the positive feedback and strong session scores (the checks in the mail ;-)

And for those that know me, I did make it to the WPT Barcelona casino for poker. The stakes were a little high for my taste and the players were quite good, but I managed to do well. Playing with people from Israel, Spain, and Holland, to name a few, was a cultural experience I will never forget.

Gràcies, Gracias, Merci

TechEd Developers conference

JackG — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 20:44:00 GMT

TechEd is shaping up to be a huge event in part due to the fact that we will not have a PDC this year. Jesse and I will be doing a presentation on the Add-in model, and participating in a chalk talk among other things. If you have an opportunity to attend the conference please feel free to stop by and say hello. If you would like to sync up at the conference please contact me via my blog.

For those interested in more details on the conference check out this link.

Hope to see you there, JackG

What’s new in the .Net Framework 3.5 (Orcas)

JackG — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 21:26:00 GMT

Visual Studio (VS) 2008 and .Net 3.5, code named “Orcas”, will be released in the near future. This release includes a number of new features and bug fixes. The release includes new major features such as LINQ, Cider (The VS WPF designer), “Crossbow” (WPF and WinForms interoperability), and my personal favorite, the Managed Add-in Framework, etc…

In the past, I outlined, provided sample code, and did some presentations on what’s new in 2.0. Given the pending Orcas release and following my 9/12/07 presentation to ~78 ISV and enterprise partners on what’s new in Orcas, I wanted to share the content I presented. Thanks to all the attendees for your feedback. It is always a pleasure speaking with our customers.

BCL Additions or enhancements

· System.TimeZoneInfo

· System.DateTimeOffset

· System.Collections.Generic.HashSet

· System.IO.Pipes

· EventSchemaTraceListener

· Event Tracing for Windows Vista (ETW)

· System.Threading.ReaderWriterLockSlim

Garbage Collector (GC)

· Overview

· System.Runtime.GCSettings.LatencyMode

· System.GC.Collect(int generation, System.GCCollectionMode mode)

CLR Security

· Support for “Suite B” crypto algorithms on Vista

o Elliptic Curve Diffie Hellman for key exchange (ECDiffieHellmanCng class)

o Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm for signing (ECDsaCng class)

o FIPS certified Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) for symmetric encryption (AesCryptoServiceProvider class)

o FIPS certified SHA2 for cryptographic hashing (SHA256Cng or SHA256CryptoServiceProvider classes)

· Support for the trusted publisher list for managed controls in the browser

o Enables a simple elevation model for controls in the browser

· New opt-in reflection security model

o Apps can reflect on the private members of libraries at the same or lower trust level. Useful for script engine scenarios

Extensibility (aka., Add-in’s, Add-on’s, Plug-in’s, Component models, …)

· System.AddIn*

o For those who offer, or wish to offer, application extensibility, the CLR now offers a robust solution with a number of features including; Discovery, Activation, Isolation, Unloadability, Sandboxing, Lifetime management, and WPF support.

CLR ThreadPool

o We invested significant development resources improving the managed implementation to be as close to native socket scaling/perf.

o Most of the code is now in managed code, eliminating unnecessary VM transitions

Misc

· MSDN Article on CLR enhancements

· Add-In team Blog

· BCL Team blog

Microsoft Europe Partner Senior Architect Forum

JackG — Sat, 20 May 2006 03:11:00 GMT

Bonjour! If you are in Paris attending the conference, I would enjoy meeting with you. I will be presenting on second day of the conference (5/24) on what’s new in the CLR and .Net Framework 2.0.

Hello World (ISV/VAR/SI)

JackG — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 00:02:00 GMT

My job is to make your life easier

My new role as a Software Architect on the Common Language Runtime (.Net), is currently focused on engaging with ISV/VAR/SI customers. I am interested in understanding your .Net architectural adoption issues and identifying desired platform feature requests and enhancements.

It's your product - What do you want for Christmas?

Microsoft and the Developer Division in particular, has taken a proactive role in community participation in order to deliver the products our customers desire. The days of developing products we think our customers need, are over. The level of openness within Microsoft is unprecedented. Access to product engineers in forums like this blog are benefiting our customers and the products we deliver. This level of openness and participation in defining the products you desire and is limited only by your engagement and our ability to deliver. So please use this posting as the beginning of a conversation with someone (me :-), who is formally tasked with engaging and facilitating the new features and enhancements you need within the .Net platform.

DialogResult result;

result = MessageBox.Show("Do you wish to have a .Net adoption dialog on architectural issues?", "ISV/VAR/SI", MessageBoxButtons.YesNo);

if (result == DialogResult.Yes) {

MessageBox.Show("Please reply to this post with Anonymous or non-Anonymous comments", "Participant");}

else {MessageBox.Show("Thanks for reading", "Observer");}

Where's Waldo?

Presentations

I recently presented an introduction to the WinFX Add-in model to the Longhorn SDR (Software Design Review) in Bellevue, Washington at the Westin hotel. This was a great opportunity for us to engage with the customer on upcoming features. For those of you that I met at the SDR with follow-up questions, please feel free to use this blog to send me emails, reply with feedback and questions either anonymously or not.

Coming soon to a theater near you

I will be presenting and participating in 3 upcoming MSDN WebCasts: An ISV .Net adoption series

An ISV insight into the CLR and .Net framework 2.0 features.
Are you interested in migrating to the .Net platform? Or gaining a deeper insight into what makes the .Net platform compelling to a solution provider? Or both? If you answered yes, then you won't be disappointed at an under the hood look at the features you care about within the CLR and .Net framework 2.0.
Presenters/Participants: Jack Gudenkauf, Brad Abrams, and James Vastbinder
Presentation date: 4/20/06 10:00am-11:00am PST
To Register click here
An ISV insight into Visual Studio Tools for Applications.
Are you interested in providing a redistributable Integrated Development Environment (IDE), Design Time (DT), and Run time (RT) that offers a rich managed customization environment for developers?
Presenters/Participants: Jack Gudenkauf, Eric Schnepp
Presentation date: 05/18/06 11:00am PST
To Register click here
An ISV insight into the WinFX Add-in model.
Have you ever wanted to have your application dynamically load and communicate with generic components at runtime? Interested in how to create independently versioning, mutually distrustful components, that work together? This talk will discuss how to address versioning and isolation utilizing the WinFX Add-in model.
Presenters/Participants: Jack Gudenkauf
Presentation date: 05/25/06 2:00pm PST
To Register click here

I will also be presenting a Live meeting on 05/23/06 on the WinFX Add-in Model.

International .NET Association (INETA). INETA facilitates interactions between the thriving .NET third party community and the .NET user group community.

Have you ever wanted to have your application dynamically load and communicate with generic components at runtime? Interested in how to create independently versioning, mutually distrustful components, that work together? This talk will discuss how to address versioning and isolation utilizing the WinFX Add-in model.

I believe the link to join the meeting is here.

Conferences

If you plan on attending the Microsoft partner conference on 7/11/06-7/13/06 in Boston, I would like to schedule some time with you to discuss .Net feature requests. Or maybe just partake in a Sam Adam's Boston lager :)

PDC05 Visual Studio Tools for Applications presentation

JackG — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 20:09:00 GMT

Check out my previous post on VSTA.

Check out the PDC05: Building Customizable Applications with VSTA. I believe this download will only be available for a limited time, so unless you attended the PDC 2005 event and you received the DVD, you better act fast.

Designing Managed Add-Ins for Reliability, Security, and Versioning

JackG — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 20:01:00 GMT

Here is the free download from the FUN309 PDC2005 session.

Here is the description from the download center

"Speakers: Jim Miller; Thomas Quinn
Most large applications allow customers to provide code to customize the application’s behavior. Examples are ActiveX controls for Internet Explorer and SmartTags in Microsoft Office. Correctly designing the interface between a host and its add-ins requires considering security, reliability, and versioning issues. This session provides prescriptive guidance for designing these interfaces when the add-in is intended to be written in managed code. We show the design and implementation of a general-purpose managed add-in model, as well as a prototype of a tool to help convert existing COM object models into managed add-in models."

Start Session Download Presentation Download PowerPoint Download materials

I believe this download will only be available for a limited time, so unless you attended the PDC 2005 event and you received the DVD, you better act fast.

For more on the Managed Addin Framework.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the System.AddIn library will first be made available in the Visual Studio for Applications product. Previous VSTA post.

WinFX Developer reference

JackG — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 22:10:00 GMT

As I mentioned in a previous post, the Managed Add-in Framework (System.AddIn NS) was announced at PDC 2005.

The WinFX <Windows VISTA Developer reference> namespace high resolution poster can be found on the WinFX web site.

PDC05 - Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Applications (VSTA)

JackG — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 04:42:00 GMT

Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Applications (VSTA)

Charter

Provide a redistributable Integrated Development Environment (IDE), Design Time (DT), and Run time (RT) for hosts (ISV’s, etc..) providing a rich managed customization environment for developers.

VSTA v1.0 was just announced in the keynote at PDC and the ship date coinsides with the release of Office 12.

Features

• Redistributable VS (Visual Studio) IDE and run time
• Managed customization support (both app- and doc-level)
• Available via the VSIP program.
• Third process debugging.
• MAF (Managed Addin Framework) implementation!
• Building and debugging 32bit and 64bit customizations
• VSTA projects open in VS and vice versa
• Macro recording (via DTE)
• Core infrastructure – project system, build/debug support
• Add-in manager

A set of public interfaces for managing Addin’s.

• Partial Trust support
• App Domain management

Support for loading customizations (Assemblies) into existing App Domains or into new App Domains.

• Managed Addin Framework support

See MAF

• SDK

Proxy Gen

• A tool similar to tlbimp. Although we produced source files that can be further tweaked Versus the binaries.
• Reflects off of TypeLib’s or managed OM’s and produces Addin friendly managed proxy code that consumes contract implementations.

See MAF for more

Generic Adapter

• Implements contracts (interfaces) and provides host side AppDomain runtime reflection against the host object model.

Samples, Snippet’s

Redistributable IDE/RT

• Host project extensibility

• v1 Scenario Example: InfoPath (host) Office12 ships with VSTA integration

• InfoPath user wants to add validation logic to one of the form fields
• InfoPath starts the VSTA IDE and tells it to create a new InfoPath project
• The user writes the validation code and presses F5 to build and start debugging.
• VSTA launches the InfoPath preview process and attaches the debugger to it
• InfoPath discovers the new Addin and tells the VSTA runtime to load it
• When the developer stops debugging, VSTA terminates the InfoPath preview process

PDC05 - Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO)

JackG — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 04:34:00 GMT

Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO)

Charter

VSTO provides professional developers with a Visual Studio IDE for developing managed applications that extend the functionality of Office applications.

VSTO version 1.0, code named White Rabbit, a Visual Studio project was available for developing managed customizations against the Office PIA’s (Primary Interop Assemblies) for Word and Excel code behind documents. The projects were available on the Everett CLR/Visual Studio.

VSTO version 2.0, which will be released with the Whidbey CLR/Visual Studio, a number of features have been added,

• A Visual Studio designer experience for Excel and Word documents.

Through the magic (years of difficult effort ;) of OLE doc object hosting, Visual Studio, hosts the Word and Excel applications, enabling the developer to utilize the full power of these Office applications for application extensibility. We provide the ability to drag and drop Winform controls directly onto the document surfaces. The ability to provide and take advantage of a fully supported word processor and spreadsheet application (as examples) for adding your additional custom functionality, as opposed to writing the Host application yourself, is what I believe should be part of what defines a “Smart Client” application.

• Off-line

o The ability to persist (cache) datasets with documents.
o Caching document assemblies (managed code associated with a document) via the IE cache.

• Document level customizations

o Word 2003 Document and template
o Excel 2003 Document and template
o InfoPath 2003 document

• Named range support

o Go ahead and move your reference to cells around, we’ll look for the associated name and the new cells it maps too. Stop referring to C1 and B1:B10.

• Server support

o Manipulate cached XML data islands via the VSTO server object model (OM) without having to start up Word/Excel on the server.

• Actions Pane

The ability to add a custom managed user control docked within the host window. Think in terms of creating your own custom task pane similar to the Office help and whose online task panes.
VSTO implementation of ISmartDocument
Built on Office Document Actions Task Pane
More – Misha/Eric blog

• Smart Tags

o Given a string to match (a regex) you can affect a context sensitive in-place menu.

• VSTO controls

o Added functionality to a Excel listobject

Enhances native Excel functionality

New methods, properties, events

BindableComponent

Databind to any bindable data source

SQL stored procedures, XML, web services

Create at design-time

• Microsoft Office InfoPath in the box.
• App manifest and Deploy manifest support
• Support for non US-EN Excel locals when calling through the PIA’s to the com methods. Also known as the LCID issue.

o I’ll blog later on the enhancements this provides.

• Outlook Application level Addin‘s

o I’ll blog later on the enhancements this provides over the current VS managed Office COM Addin extensibility projects.

• And a whole lot more

VSTO v.next, which is planned to be released with the Orcas CLR/Visual Studio, a number of features are being shown at PDC.

• Application level Add-in projects for all Office Applications

o Word, Excel, Power point, Outlook, InfoPath, FrontPage, Project, Visio, Publisher, Access

• Application level Programmable Task Pane designer for all Office add-in projects
• Compatibility/Enhancements

o Support for new Office Open Packaging file format

• And a lot more

PDC05 - Managed AddIn Framework (MAF)

JackG — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 04:14:00 GMT

MAF (Managed AddIn Framework)

The Managed Add-in Framework defines a programming model, built on top of .NET that allows applications to dynamically load and communicate with generic components at runtime. We provide a solution for creating independently versioning, mutually distrustful components, and allow them to work together. We tackle the two problematic – versioning and isolation – together.

At PDC05, Thomas Quinn, an architect on our team, responsible for VSTO and VSTA, and Jim Miller, a CLR architect, responsible for several platform components related to versioning support in the CLR, among other things, jointly presented the platform framework for managed Addin’s. See the PDC FUN309 session.

What is an Add-In?

An add-in is traditionally thought of as custom code (a customization), written by a third party that is loaded and activated by a Host application (Word, Excel, etc…) upon the host starting up. The host makes their programmable API (Object Model) available to the customization assembly. In the case of the Office host applications, the Application object, which is the root of the hierarchical object model, is made available to the Add-in. I will use “Addin” in a more generic sense to mean code that is discovered based upon some event (The host Starting up, the loading of a document, etc..). Later, I will argue that this definition is too narrow.

Behavior

Note that the definition I just articulated was a dynamic loading mechanism as opposed to static. An Addin is also generally loaded into the host’s process. This requirement then adds the concern of isolation. The host needs to be isolated from errant behavior of the Addin and Addin’s should in many cases, be isolated from each other. Although it is implied, the two components also need to agree on some communication protocol (a contract).

An Addin should be able to be loaded/unloaded of its own accord or loaded/unloaded by the host.
The requirement to Load/Unload Addin’s dynamically, adds the further requirement that the Host and Addin need to version independently.

A picture is worth a thousand words

Text image representation

Host Application - Adapter IContract | IContract - Proxy - Add-In

Host Process - Implements Contract IMyContra | ct : IContract - Addin Friendly facade/OM - Customization

<-------------------------------------Direction of Call--------------------------------------------------------------

Vertical bar (|) represents a boundary (Process, AppDomain)

Terms

Contracts
Pre-defined interfaces used as explicit, agreed upon protocols for communication between two endpoints.

• All user defined contracts derive from IContract the base interface.
• A Contract is roughly analogous to a COM Interface.
• Possibly a better description from Thomas Quinn (aka TQ), “A Contract is any .NET interface, derived from IContract (to be defined), and having the following properties: it never versions beyond servicing, the containing assembly contains only other Contracts or non-versioning types, and it exposes in its method signatures only other Contracts, or fully known, loadable, and serializable type. It explicitly cannot contain the types System.Object, System.Type, System.MarshalByRefObject, any type from System.Reflection nor delegates or events, nor any other type which may cause the exposure of an implementation type”

Adapters

• Implement contracts.
• Adapters serve the purpose of adapting between a friendly .NET Framework based programming model on each end and the less friendly, and more restricted contracts in the middle. Adapters are the object model.
• Similar in concept to web services. Although MAF is designed for Object Oriented services versus a Services Oriented model. We have worked with the Indigo team (aka. Windows Communications Foundation) on ensuring the two models are in alignment and they will continue to evolve in conjunction with each other. In a nutshell, both models prescribe an explicit understanding of boundaries (web service boundaries are machine), proxy generation, agreed upon contracts, separation of the definition and implementation and consumption, etc…

Proxies

• Consume (call into) contracts.
• Exposes an object oriented, .NET Friendly surface to its consumers (Add-in’s).
• Similar in concept to consuming web services.
• Makes requests across the App Domain boundary.

.Net platform libraries

System.AddIn.dll and the System.AddIn namespace

• The NS will first be made available to the public in the VSTA/O12 release in the second half of 2006.
• The VSTA product and MAF have been announced at PDC 2005.
• First available in VSTA/O12 and then made available broadly in Orcas as part of the platform (CLR).
• This System.AddIn.dll is the Add-in loader
• An Add-in is any component that is discovered and loaded at runtime by a hosting application and that version separately from the hosting application. The loader is the component that is responsible for the App domain creation utilizing a customizable security manager, loads and activates Addin's in specified App domains and provides Add-in unloading of specified App domains. The level of unloading in the CLR is by process or AppDomain.

System.Addin.Contract

• This dll may not version (first tenant of a contract).
• First available in VSTA/O12 and then made available broadly in Orcas as part of the platform (CLR),
• Defines base contract IContract
• Provides a remote kind of reflection. The contracts mimic the similarly named types in the System.Reflection namespace without providing the full implementation. The goal here is to be able to invoke methods and properties, set and get fields and handle events on objects across the remoting boundary without having direct access to that object’s Type. We provide a remote type surrogate that performs the duties of Type and its friends.

PDC05

JackG — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 04:45:00 GMT

Here I am in Los Angeles, attending the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference 2005 (PDC05). As an attendee, you get an opportunity to speak with the Microsoft product development teams, as well as the opportunity to see potential <big disclaimer here> future product features and directions. You will also receive prescriptive guidance on design recommendations that Microsoft feels confident in prescribing, in order to ensure your applications and ultimately your customers, will benefit from.

I am Jack Gudenkauf, a Group Development Manager in the Microsoft Visual Studio Tools group (aka Trinity). I have participated in the development of two products; Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) and Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Applications (VSTA).

In addition to working on these products, I have also been involved in driving towards defining a solution for providing a framework that enables isolated, version resilient, managed Add-in’s (Add in, AddIn). This is a critical component in designing .Net Smart Client applications. This effort has culminated in the PDC announcement of the Managed Addin Framework (aka MAF). These products and Framework components have been under development for a number of years and PDC 2005 is where Microsoft has chosen to unveil this technology.

VSTO, VSTA and MAF, provide a platform infrastructure and tool set for the evolution of managed, and mixed mode (managed/un-managed Hosts offering a managed or Inter-Op Object model) Hosts, that offer a managed Smart Client application development environment. The framework and tools, support Host integration solutions that provide application extensibility and automation.

Tech-Ed, Smart Client, VSTO, and Outlook Addin's

JackG — Tue, 14 Jun 2005 05:30:00 GMT

I want to appologize for the delay in posting Blogs, but we have been very busy on getting Whidbey out the door and adding a few new features like Smart tags as well as Outlook Addin's.

Tech-Ed WebCasts for Smart Client as well as other interesting sessions. The link for the web casts will require you to register but this seems to be for logging purposes only. I was not charged or forced to receive email for signing up.

For those of you tracking Smart Client Development for the Office platform, you will see that VSTO announced a long asked for feature in the Whidbey Visual Studio Tools for Office product. Support for Managed Outlook Addin's! This VSTO 2005 feature improves upon the Visual Studio managed COM Addin projects. By providing AppDomain isolation for the Addin's, the Host (Outlook), as well as other Addin's receive a level of isolation and unloadability. There is currently no way to unload a customization (Custom code written for the purpose of automating a Host) from the default App Domain.

In the case where all Addin's are loaded in the default AD (App Domain).

You will increase the likelihood of one Addin adversely effecting another Addin
Increase the memory overhead of the Host process with each Addin loaded (there is no way to unload an Addin without destroying an AD)
Increases the potential for a single Addin to bring down the Host process.

There are additional enhancements in the Outlook Addin that I hope to Blog about later.

For more on AppDomains check out Chris Brumme's blog.

More Outlook Addin links

Office Developer Conference

JackG — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 00:20:00 GMT

I mentioned the Office Developer Conference in a previous post due to its relevance to Smart Client applications. In the Bill Gates keynote, you will find references to Office as a platform and a demo of the Visual Studio for Office 2005 (VSTO) product which I have a personal interest and pride in. The ability to utilize the full functionality of a robust spreadsheet application like Excel and extend the application through customizations (Hosted .Net code) is a major pillar in the Smart Client paradigm. Imagine the development opportunities in extending an existing robust application as opposed to starting with an empty Winform shell.

Video of the Bill Gates Office Developer keynote.