So, I just bought 5 copies of Office 2007 for a friend of mine in the good land of Minnesota. He’s upgrading all of his home computers and those for his kids scattered about the country. One of the first things he’ll notice is the new Office Fluent UI, and he’ll likely need some help finding his way around the new way we display the commands. No more “File | New” etc. in some of the applications. Sure, Office 2007 has been out for a while now, but there are still many thousands of people moving to the new version as the weeks pass. And, it’s good to learn one’s way around the apps even when the old menu structure has been mostly unchanged.

So, I am pushing the reference guides and how to customize the UI to the top of everyone’s inbox:

Access -- http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b9574c72-657f-438c-9de9-f8f70dd2d40d&DisplayLang=en

Excel -- http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=89718ABD-2758-47B3-9F90-93788112B985&displaylang=en

Outlook -- http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=CC37CC1E-028D-4D30-9093-96CC6513ECA1&displaylang=en

PowerPoint -- http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=BEF41DC3-8E28-4282-82D4-CEC2F416CD40&displaylang=en

Word -- http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9044790b-4e24-4277-b714-66d7b18d0aa1&DisplayLang=en

Here’s the location on the MSDN Office Developer Center where you can find developer info about how to customize the UI:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/aa905530.aspx

One of the things that is encouraging is how many non-Microsoft applications are revisiting their UI layout and adopting a similar approach to what we introduced in Office 2007. Over the coming years you’ll see more applications (from us and others) going this direction mainly because how people work in the applications is so very different from what it was in the 90’s. I also fee persuaded that we have barely scratched the “Surface” (pun intended) in exploring new ways to make it easier for people to interact with the systems upon which they depend.

Rock Thought of the Day:

What if a hugely famous band decided to let the fans be part of the process of making new music? How would that work? What are the logistics? How would they react? How would the band adjust to the reaction? What would (ugh) critics think? Would it matter? Well, only a few bands in history have really taken up such a project in earnest, and one is, of course, The Smashing Pumpkins back in 2007. And, they packaged up the journey in a compelling documentary called “If All Goes Wrong”. It’s honest, revealing, and irresistibly insightful. I own my own, but I’ve been buying copies for friends. What is best is the focus on the music. It’s all about snatching songs out of the universe, playing them, recording them, and seeing what happens. Get a copy.

Rock On

TechEd 2009 is a done deal. I wanted to toss out a few observations from the event. Here’s what really stood out:

1) The overall mood was pleasantly up-beat and the attendance was solid.

The economic times have hit every budget everywhere, but the tempo was not sagging at TechEd. I heard a number of people say that they were lucky that their organization had bugeted for the event as early as last summer. The people there were really excited about technologies across the spectrum. No single thing stood out to me anecdotally more than another.

2) The interest in Office 2010 was extremely high

We announced a technical preview available to attendees at the show if they signed up while at TechEd. This was the #1 question at the booth: “How can I sign up for the Technical Preview?!”

I was really pleased to see so many people interested in the next version of our Office program. As I fielded many developer questions at the booth I was regretting that it is not yet time to discuss the next version and what’s in store for the developer crowd. Oh well… that time will come!

3) Many people really “get” our Microsoft value proposition

In some circles, it’s “chic” to bash on Microsoft. I understand all that for whatever reason. All the same, it’s really great when a customer walks up and just gushes with excitement about the products he or she is deploying and the solutions that are being built on top. It really stokes my engines when I hear a customer sharing how he built a whole system in Word that radically simplifies how they write contracts in their organization. Another customer talked about how they use PowePoint for all of their training and repair manuals for complex equipment. They use code to generate the PowerPoint decks from other data sources.

4) We’ve got a lot of work to do to help SharePoint developers get up to speed on what Office client application programmability can do for them

As I chatted with SharePoint developers who passed by, they were eager to let me show them what Office programmability means and what it can do. They, for the most part, had no idea that Office could be programmed so easily and that it had so much hidden power. This tells me that they probably came to SharePoint development from the Web dev space. This is a strong trend, and we are going to be doing a lot to help them get into the Office side of things as it will strengthen their solutions considerably.

On the lighter side—I add these observations:

1) The food was not as plentiful. Yeah—I know it’s wrong to complain about food when we have it so abundantly compared to many in the world. But, the spoiled, selfish part of me wanted to see the coolers full of Dove and Hagen Dasz bars return! I loved eating the desserts and so on that crowded the halls outside of the session rooms.

2) The TV in my hotel room was an old-school 20 inch non-flatscreen thing sitting on a stand 15 feet from my bed. Watching NatGeo was pretty lame on that set.

3) My rental car was a Nissan 350Z (free upgrade, baby!). It was really, really fun to drive. Would have preferred a Corvette ZR1 however :)

4) Having dinner with my colleagues, Charles Maxson and Michael Kiselman were highlights of the week for me.

5) Traffic in LA is worse than the hideous reputation that precedes it.

6) Seeing my old contacts Ty Anderson, Robert Bogue, Matt Nunn, Rob Tiffany, Mary Chipman, Brian Randell, and dozens and dozens of others is always satisfying. I was also really pleased to see many customers that I have met in previous years and know that they remember me. People are cool!

7) Missing my wife and sons is not so great.

8) Walking around the streets of LA in the late evening by myself listening to Smashing Pumpkins on my Zune while singing out loud was refreshing and peaceful.

9) The weather in LA is just hard to beat. I love heat.

10) Visiting one of the temples for my church in Redlands was also a highlight. It’s a beautiful and peaceful place.

 Rock Thought of the Day:

I’ve often blogged about The Smashing Pumpkins among the many bands I have discussed in my Rock Thought. One of the more intriguing ideas to recently appear in the music industry comes from Billy Corgan. He has proposed a way for his legions of devoted fans to gain unprecedented access to how he conceives, writes, and records his songs. It’s a novel concept and I predict that other artists will explore similar terrain as they try to connect with their audiences in new and creative ways. As Billy noted in one of his posts, it’s not really about trying to find a new product that can be peddled to fans. Everyone who has worked in the music industry, which I have, knows that touring is THE money printer for music artists. The primary way to earn loads of money is by touring. It’s hard work, lonely, and grueling, but it is usually very lucrative. But, I think that artists are exploring new ways of connecting with fans for different reasons at least initially. Check out what Billy has proposed and sign up for the newsletter so you can get involved!

Rock On

Follow me: http://www.twitter.com/johnrdurant

I recent wrote (“Twitter from Excel 2007”) about how Chandoo (Plus JP) caught my attention with their quirky take on updating Twitter from Excel. In there, I said I would lay down an expanded, more useful version. In so doing, I believe I have also provided a raison d’être for the thing in the first place!

Here’s the shakedown (keeping in mind that These postings are provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confer no rights.”:

I wrote the VS 2008 Add-in for Excel 2007 with a smart tag. The smart tag recognizes phrases or keywords that you have typed into Excel and then, with one click, let’s you post the cell (containing the keyword[s]) or List to Twitter.

You can change what/how the smart tag recognizes (for example using regular expressions), and I have personally written much on this topic already on MSDN (see list of resources at the end of this post). You can also change how the smart tag action handler works of which I have also written a fair amount (see resources again).

Gilding the lily even further, when I post a dialog for your Twitter credentials I encrypt the username and password and store the hashes statefully so that the next time you do the one-click Twitter post you don’t need to re-enter your credentials. I just decrypt them and use the stored ones. This is not mega-industrial strength security practice, but it sure beats putting passwords in the code or storing them as plain-text. At the same, it also provides a superior user experience, because the user does not have to repeatedly provide credentials which would be, at the very least, annoying.

Making this work inside of Word is a snap—very, very trivial. Again, look at the documentation on creating smart tags, and you’ll see how easy that is.

In the near future, I am going to figure out how to do this for Facebook.

Obviously, you’ll need a Twitter account to test this. So, sit back with your bag of M&M’s and strap in for the technical detail!

1) For the password encryption/decryption I used the Microsoft Patterns & Practices Application Blocks 4.1. I strongly recommend working through one of the samples before attempting to go it alone. I’ve done a lot with these blocks over the years, and they are never as ‘plug-and-go’ as one hopes. Anyway, in those blocks is a Security.Cryptographer building block. I use it, and I show you everything I do in this post.

2) Create a VS 2008 Excel 2007 Add-in using VB.NET

3) In the new project, add a form called “TwitterLogin”. Configure it to look like this:

4) Your control names should be the following:

5) Add references so that they look like this:

6) Add a new class called HashHelper.

7) Add a new app.config file

8) Your overall project contents should look like this (you see a key file in here also, and you’ll be adding it in another step or two):

9) Configure the app.config file to use a new symmetric provider for the encryption/description by right-clicking on app.config in VS. Open the file in the configuration editor by selecting Edit Enterprise Library Configuration on the context menu.

10) In the editor, right click on the Application (the path with your app.config file name) and select New | Cryptography Application Block.

11) Select Symmetric Providers in the new block just added and choose New. Then, select Symmetric Algorithm Provider.

12) In the resulting dialog, select RijndaelManaged as the type, and press the Generate button to automatically generate a key, click OK. You’ll want the name/path of the key to be in the directory of your application (could be anywhere but it’s easier to manager this way) as shown in the previous solution explorer image.

13) Name your new provider “symmProvider”. Verify that it look like this one:

14) Close the app.config file and save your changes.

15) Return to your TwitterLogin form and double-click the button to bring up the cmdLogin_click event handler. Add this to that handler:

       Dim UserNameEncrypt As String
        Dim PasswordEncrypt As String

        UserNameEncrypt = HashHelper.EncryptText(txtUsername.Text)
        PasswordEncrypt = HashHelper.EncryptText(txtPassword.Text)

        My.Settings.Username = UserNameEncrypt
        My.Settings.Password = PasswordEncrypt

16) Make sure you have included the following Imports statements at the top of the class for that form:

Imports System.Security.Cryptography
Imports Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Security.Cryptography

17) Close and save the form.

18) Open the HashHelper.vb file

19) Add the following definition code to that file. Your login form and add-in code will be calling into this code to encrypt and decrypt the password as well as store their hashes.

Imports Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Security.Cryptography
Imports System.Text

Friend Class HashHelper

    Private Sub New()
    End Sub

    ' Hash provider name must match app.config
    Private Const Provider As String = "symmProvider"

    Public Shared Function EncryptText(ByVal plainText As String) As String
        Dim returnText As String
        returnText = Cryptographer.EncryptSymmetric(Provider, plainText)
        Return returnText
    End Function

    Public Shared Function DecryptText(ByVal HashString As String) As String
        Dim DecryptedString As String
        DecryptedString = Cryptographer.DecryptSymmetric(Provider, HashString)
        Return DecryptedString
    End Function

End Class

20) Open your ThisAddIn.vb code file and add these Imports statements:

Imports Microsoft.Office.Tools.Excel
Imports System.Windows.Forms
Imports Microsoft.Office.Interop.SmartTag
Imports System.Net
Imports System.IO
Imports Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Security.Cryptography

21) Add the following global variable to your ThisAddIn Class:

    Private TwitterTag As TwitterSmartTag

22) Add this to your ThisAddIn_Startup method:

        TwitterTag = New TwitterSmartTag()
        Me.VstoSmartTags.Add(TwitterTag)
   

23) Add a new class called TwitterSmartTag and add code so it looks like this:

Public Class TwitterSmartTag
    Inherits SmartTag

    ' Declare Actions for this SmartTag
    WithEvents Action1 As New Action("")
    WithEvents Action2 As New Action("whatever")

    Public Sub New()
        MyBase.New("http://painjunkie.spaces.live.com/jrd#TwitterTag", _
            "Excel-to-Twitter Smart Tag")
        Me.Terms.AddRange(New String() {"Soulfly", "Motorhead", "Judas Priest", "Tool", "Pantera"})
        Actions = New Action() {Action1}
    End Sub

    Protected Overrides Sub Recognize(ByVal text As String, _
        ByVal site As ISmartTagRecognizerSite, _
        ByVal tokenList As ISmartTagTokenList)

        ' Determine whether each smart tag term exists in 
        ' the document text.
        Dim Term As String
        For Each Term In Me.Terms

            ' Search the cell text for the first instance of 
            ' the current smart tag term.
            Dim index As Integer = Me.CellText.IndexOf(Term, 0)

            If (index >= 0) Then

                ' Create a smart tag token and a property bag for the 
                ' recognized term.
                Dim propertyBag As ISmartTagProperties = _
                    site.GetNewPropertyBag()

                ' Write a new property value.
                Dim key As String = "Key1"
                propertyBag.Write(key, DateTime.Now)

                ' Attach the smart tag to the term in the document
                Me.PersistTag(propertyBag)

                ' This implementation only finds the first instance
                ' of a smart tag term in the cell. 
                Exit For
            End If
        Next
    End Sub

    Private Sub Action1_BeforeCaptionShow(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As Microsoft.Office.Tools.Excel.ActionEventArgs) Handles Action1.BeforeCaptionShow
        Dim ClickedAction As Action = sender
        If e.Range.ListObject Is Nothing Then
            sender.Caption = "Tweet this cell"
        Else
            sender.Caption = "Tweet this list"
        End If
    End Sub

    ' This action displays the property value for the term.
    Private Sub Action1_Click(ByVal sender As Object, _
        ByVal e As ActionEventArgs) Handles Action1.Click

        Dim propertyBag As ISmartTagProperties = e.Properties
        Dim key As String = "Key1"
        Dim Tweeter As New TweetThis()
        Try
            If My.Settings.Username.Length = 0 Or My.Settings.Password.Length = 0 Then
                Dim LoginForm As New TwitterLogin()
                LoginForm.ShowDialog()
            End If
            If Tweeter.TweetIt(e.Range.Text).Length > 0 Then
            Else
                MessageBox.Show("Twitter successfully updated!", "Twitter Status", MessageBoxButtons.OK)
                Exit Try
            End If
            Throw New Exception
        Catch ex As Exception
            MessageBox.Show(ex.Message, "Twitter Update Error", MessageBoxButtons.OK)
        End Try

    End Sub
End Class

24) Lastly, add this class, TweetThis, which actually does the work of posting to your Twitter account:

Public Class TweetThis
    Public Function TweetIt(ByVal msg As String) As String
        Dim username, password As String
        Try

            username = HashHelper.DecryptText(My.Settings.Username)
            password = HashHelper.DecryptText(My.Settings.Password)

            System.Net.ServicePointManager.Expect100Continue = False

            Dim bytes() As Byte = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes("status=" & msg)

            Dim request As HttpWebRequest = CType(WebRequest.Create("http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml"), HttpWebRequest)
            request.Credentials = New System.Net.NetworkCredential(username, password)
            request.Method = "POST"
            request.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
            request.ContentLength = bytes.Length

            Dim reqStream As Stream = request.GetRequestStream()
            reqStream.Write(bytes, 0, bytes.Length)
            reqStream.Close()

            Dim response As HttpWebResponse = request.GetResponse
            Dim reader As New System.IO.StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream)

            Dim retValue As String = reader.ReadToEnd()
            reader.Close()

            Return ""
        Catch ex As Exception
            Return "error"
        End Try
    End Function
End Class

25) That about does it. Build the solution and make sure things look good there. Then, run it and see what happens.

BTW: Follow me:

http://painjunkie.spaces.live.com/

http://twitter.com/johnrdurant

Smart Tags Development Resources:

Content I have written

Office Developer Center (just search for ‘Smart Tags’ there and you’ll see pretty good links)

I truly enjoy being enthusiastic about OneNote. I’m not ashamed of my unguarded devotion to this application (share the love via the new site: www.iheartonenote.com). Here at Microsoft, new ideas spring up every day, and those ideas/prototypes/proofs-of-concept fight for attention. They scramble, they hustle, prove their value, and if they are lucky—they survive and make it to big show: They become part of the Microsoft Office brand. OneNote is one such idea, and during the past few years it has radically altered my entire Windows experience.

I record, store, share, search, and surf meaningful information in very different ways since I started using this application. I have heard similar experiences from many other people.

When I was in college I used a manual typewriter (not even electric!). I used that for my bachelors and one of my master’s degrees. Later, for my other two degree programs, I was able to get a small PowerBook with Word 6.0 and Excel. But, all of my notes were on paper. If I had been able to use OneNote I would have been much more productive.

OneNote has a modest little developer story, but, if OneNote can only have one developer angle—it is the right one: It exposes a little import method so that other applications can export their content to OneNote (eg: Internet Explorer, Outlook, Word, a non-MS application, whatever).

Here are two little articles that explain how:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms788684.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa286798.aspx

Rock Thought of the Day:

Purchased the new DVD of the Who, live at Kilburn 1977. It’s footage that has never been seen before (the film cans were nearly thrown out in the trash). It contains the penultimate performance of Keith Moon, and it shows the band at their zenith of power. Go get it, and prepare to not be able to pull yourself away from the screen until it’s over.

Rock On

I am frequently asked about how to do some of the basics with XML parts in Office documents. There are excellent blogs and content out there to guide you in working with Office Open XML such as Brian Jones, Doug Mahugh, MSDN, and the Office Open XML SDK. I have also blogged extensively about OOXML and co-authored a major book on XML. But, the need to help more and more people get into the game of XML and Office is ever present.

So, here are a couple of routines you'll find useful. The first routine adds two XML parts to a Microsoft Word document. The second removes the first XML part.

Private Sub AddToDataStore()
  Dim pCustomPart As CustomXMLPart
  Set pCustomPart = ThisDocument. _
    CustomXMLParts.Add
  pCustomPart.Load "C:\XMLPart1.xml"
  pCustomPart.Load "C:\XMLSchema1.xsd"
End Sub

Private Sub RemoveFromDataStore()
  Dim pCustomPart As CustomXMLPart
  Dim pCustomParts As CustomXMLParts
  Set pCustomParts = ThisDocument.CustomXMLParts
  pCustomParts.Item(1).Delete
End Sub

It's essential to create copies of documents before you start messing around with their content and composition via code.

Now, you can add whatever XML you want. In this case, the XML contains data for a memo and it is in the document. The document contains places for the memo data. Up to this point, the memo data are unseen to the user. To surface the data in the document's editable area you place content controls, one for each memo property (To, From, etc.) in the document and bind the content controls to the XML source in the following way:

Private Sub AddControlMap()
  Dim cControls As ContentControls

  Set cControls = ThisDocument.ContentControls
  cControls.Item(1).XMLMapping.SetMapping "/ns:memo/ns:to", _
  "xmlns:ns='http://painjunkie.spaces.live.com'"
  cControls.Item(2).XMLMapping.SetMapping "/ns:memo/ns:from", _
  "xmlns:ns='http://painjunkie.spaces.live.com'"
  cControls.Item(3).XMLMapping.SetMapping "/ns:memo/ns:date", _
  "xmlns:ns='http://painjunkie.spaces.live.com'"
  cControls.Item(4).XMLMapping.SetMapping "/ns:memo/ns:topics", _
  "xmlns:ns='http://painjunkie.spaces.live.com'"
  cControls.Item(5).XMLMapping.SetMapping "/ns:memo/ns:body", _
  "xmlns:ns='http://painjunkie.spaces.live.com'"
End Sub

What is so slick about all of this is that Office does the work of gluing it all together for you if your XML data conforms to the XML schema you added in the AddToDataStore procedure! By mapping a content control to a specific node in the schema will cause the data (also mapped to the schema) to load into the content control.

Try it out, and tell me how it goes.

Rock Thought of the Day: Lovin' the blues-soaked song "Bridge of Sighs" from Robin Trower off of his 2007 release by the same name. Check it out! 

ROCK ON!

SharePoint development is a special skill, so special that if you want to make a decent living, are tired of your current job, and can learn quickly, then get going with how to build solutions on SharePoint technologies. Equally lucrative is managing SharePoint servers. Many companies are moving to SharePoint as quickly as they can.

Now-- if you decide to get into SharePoint development, then you'll quickly realize that there are not a lot of comprehensive toolsets out there for working on the platform. One of the most useful things Microsoft has released for SharePoint has been the Visual Studio Extensions for Windows SharePoint Services or VSeWSS. And, version 1.3 was just released. Here's what's in the new release according to the SharePoint blog:

• The extensions now install on x64 bit OS. Visual Studio 2008 and SharePoint must be already installed.
• Command Line Build option for TFS and MSBuild integration
• Separate WSP Package and Retract commands. You can now build the WSP without deploying it
• SPSolGen to Support Exporting from Content Management Publishing Sites
• New Item Template for RootFiles Deployment
• Automatically Remove conflicting existing features on development SharePoint server
• WSP View New Feature Dialog Improvements: scope, receiver checkbox, element checkbox
• WSP View can now be used to merge features and it blocks site features being merged into web features
• Allow adding separate binary files such as Workflow assemblies
• Some refactoring allowing for Web Part renaming and removing lines from feature.xml Item Removed
• Allow selection of GAC or BIN deployment for Web Part Project not including CAS generation
• Increase visibility of hidden features that VSeWSS creates
• Add fast update deploy for DLL only or file only changes to solutions
• Numerous Bug Fixes and improvements to error messages

Everyone of these features demonstrates how closely the team listened to their customers. Being able to build WSP's but not deploy them is a nice touch. Working with 64 bit is key, and allowing for GAC or BIN deployment removes a notable frustration. All of them are wins for SharePoint developers using VS 2008.

Rock Thought of the Day: I really like "California Songs" by Local H, another great Chicago band. Just another great straight-up rock and roll tune. Give it a listen.

ROCK ON!

What are customers doing with VSTO and Microsoft technologies generally? We have recently published case studies that show how and what companies are doing with our tools Below are two prominent studies with the list of products and technologies used. I have also included links to the case studies. Here is the link to the overall customer evidence for VS: http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/search.aspx?ProTaxID=3197

CME Group Link to Case Study

• Microsoft Visual Studio
• Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Suite
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server
• Microsoft Server Product Portfolio
• Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition
• Microsoft Office
• Microsoft Office Excel 2007
• Microsoft Office Word 2007
• Solutions
• Office Business Applications
• Technologies
• ClickOnce application deployment technology
• Language Integrated Query
• Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Replication Services
• Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office system
• Windows Forms
• Windows SharePoint Services

Dell   Link to Case Study

• Microsoft Visual Studio
• Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Suite
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server
• Microsoft Office
• Microsoft Office Word 2007
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Microsoft Server Product Portfolio
• Windows Server 2008
• Services
• Microsoft Technology Center
• Solutions
• Office Business Applications
• Technologies
• C# 3.0
• Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0
• Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5
• Visual Studio Tools for Office
• Windows Presentation Foundation

Second Rock Thought for the Day: I recall when I first heard the song MIssissippi Queen by Mountain as a kid. The guitar riff and weathered vocals really stuck with me. It's been covered by Zakk Wylde and others. This  is a sure-fire hit from about 1970. I just gotta rock!

Rock On!

Here were are nearly on the eve of our Visual Studio 2008 Launch event and we are already releasing more goodness!! We are announcing the release of some Office Power Tools for Visual Studio 2008. These are extra little projects, often done on the side requiring extra hours and effort from our team. They are also things that we were eager to get into the hands of our customers. I am really excited to see these hit the Web, and I look forward to hearing what your think!

Here’s the download page: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=46B6BF86-E35D-4870-B214-4D7B72B02BF9&displaylang=en

There are 9 tools are packaged in 3 exe's (3 different EULAs), plus an overview doc:

• VSTO_PTRibbonIDs.exe installs the Ribbon IDs Tool Window
• VSTO_PTExtLibs.exe installs the Office Interop API Extensions and Custom UI Manager
• VSTO_PT.exe installs all other power tools
• VSTOA Power Tools.docx – overview document

Office Custom UI Manager

A set of classes for coordinating multiple instances of Ribbon, custom task pane and custom form region.

Office Interop API Extensions

A set of C# classes for handling parameterized properties, optional/named parameters, and for LINQ-enabling Office collection objects.

Open XML Package Editor

A graphical treeview-based editor for examining and editing Open XML Package files (including Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents).

Ribbon IDs ToolWindow

A custom tool window that displays all re-usable built-in Office Ribbon IDs.

SharePoint Feature Sweeper

A GUI tool that cleans up unwanted SharePoint workflow features from the target server.

SharePoint Workflow Package Generator

A build tool to package a SharePoint workflow project so that the developer can hand the workflow to the admin for deployment.

VSTO/VSTA Pipeline Verifier

A GUI tool that reflects over custom pipeline assemblies to validate the complete VSTA pipeline.

VSTO Developer Cleaner

A GUI tool that cleans up the developer's machine from leftover build artifacts in the registry and certificate store.

VSTO Troubleshooter

A diagnostic tool that examines a machine for the necessary pre-requisites for running VSTO solutions.

Rock Thought for the Day: