Office Client Developer Content and Resources : developer

New Features of Interest to Developers in Visio 2010

saulc — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 20:49:00 GMT

If you’re a Visio solution developer, you’ll find several new features in the Visio 2010 Beta to interest you and to enhance your ability to create great Visio solutions. Among these features are the following:

· The ribbon component of the Office Fluent user interface—“the ribbon,” for short, which gives Visio a new user interface, taking the place of the system of menus and toolbars that existed in previous versions of Visio.

· Containers, lists, and callouts—new ways to organize your Visio diagrams.

· Diagram validation—a feature that lets you analyze a diagram to verify that it is properly constructed and is compliant with business logic defined for the document.

· Sub-process diagrams, which make it possible to extract a set of shapes from a diagram and move them to a separate, linked page.

· Raster export configuration options, making it possible for you to get and set options for export of Visio diagrams in raster file format.

· Publishing Visio diagrams to SharePoint servers as VDW files.

And many more…

You can find more information about all these features and more in the articles “What’s New in Microsoft Visio 2010 for Automation Developers” and “What’s New in Microsoft Visio 2010 for ShapeSheet Developers,” in Visio Developer Help. For more information about how to download the latest updates to Help for the Beta release, see the post Developer Help Updates for Office 2010 Beta in this blog.

Also, check out the Visio Team Blog, here: http://blogs.msdn.com/visio/

And watch for articles to be posted on MSDN in upcoming months that provide code samples showing how to make use of these features in your solutions.

Preparing your Existing Solutions to Run on Outlook 2010

angelgolfer — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:21:00 GMT

This post is about issues you might want to be aware of if you plan to update your existing Microsoft Outlook solutions to run on Outlook 2010. This information is also available in the Outlook 2010 Developer Reference which you can download at Office 2010: Developer References. However, because currently, the content of the Developer Reference is not readily searchable on the Internet, I am providing a copy here for your convenience.

Collaboration Data Objects (CDO)

Collaboration Data Objects (CDO) 1.21 is not supported in Outlook 2010. Any existing version of CDO 1.21 will be removed when you upgrade from an earlier version of Office. The absence of CDO will break solutions that have a dependency on it. The suggested workaround is to rewrite your solution so that it uses the Outlook object model, which has been enhanced to provide most of the CDO functionality, or to call Messaging API (MAPI) directly.

Exchange Client Extensions (ECEs)

By default, Exchange client extensions do not load in Outlook 2010. There is no workaround unless the creator of the Exchange client extension converts the Exchange client extension to an Office COM add-in.

Customizing Inspector or Explorer Command Bars

Command bars are deprecated in the inspector and explorer in Outlook 2010. Although your add-in or VBScript code that customized command bars in an inspector or explorer might still work in Outlook 2010, those who use your solution might not easily find your custom commands because those commands appear on the Add-ins tab of the ribbon in the customized inspector or explorer. Instead of using command bars, use the IRibbonExtensibility interface in an Outlook add-in. Note that you cannot customize inspector ribbons by using VBScript code behind forms. For more information about using IRibbonExtensibility to customize the Outlook user interface programmatically, see the article Extending the User Interface in Outlook 2010 on the MSDN Web site.

Customizing Shortcut Menus Using Application Object Events

Customizations to shortcut menus using events such as ItemContextMenuDisplay on the Application object might not operate as expected. These events operate on a CommandBar object that is returned in the event. Because command bars are deprecated in Outlook 2010, use IRibbonExtensibility to customize shortcut menus programmatically. For more information about customizing shortcut menus, see the article Extending the User Interface in Outlook 2010 on the MSDN Web site.

Office 2010 Available in Both 32-bit and 64-bit Versions

64-bit processors are becoming the standard for systems ranging from servers to desktop computers. 64-bit systems can use more virtual and physical memory than 32-bit processors. Users on 64-bit systems can work with much larger data sets, and analyze and solve larger computational problems than they could previously. Microsoft Office 2010 is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. The native 64-bit version of Office 2010 takes advantage of the larger capacity. The 32-bit version of Office 2010 provides the same functionality as 64-bit, and is compatible with 32-bit add-ins. By default, Office 2010 installs the 32-bit version. Office 2010 also supports 32-bit Office applications running on 64-bit Windows operating systems by using Windows-32-on-Windows-64 (WOW64). WOW64 is the x86 emulator that enables 32-bit Windows-based applications to run seamlessly on 64-bit Windows. The 32-bit version of Office 2010 gives users the ability to continue to use existing 32-bit ActiveX controls, COM add-ins, and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) solutions on 32-bit systems, and with WOW64, on 64-bit systems as well.

For more details, see my blog post Developing Outlook 2010 Solutions for 32-bit and 64-bit Systems.

ActiveX Controls and COM Add-ins

ActiveX controls and add-in (COM) DLLs that are written for 32-bit Office do not work in a 64-bit process. As a result, a 64-bit solution for Office 2010 that tries to load 32-bit ActiveX controls or DLLs in its process fails. In addition to controls that load into Office applications, there are also Web-based solutions that use ActiveX controls in Internet Explorer. The 64-bit version of Office 2010 installs Office 32-bit client-side controls to support Web solutions in a browser. The workaround to resolve these issues on a 64-bit system is to have your 64-bit solution load 64-bit-compatible controls and add-ins, or provide a 32-bit solution for Office 2010 (WOW64) to work with the 32-bit ActiveX controls and COM add-ins.

MAPI Applications

If you have developed and installed 32-bit MAPI applications, there are actions that you should take to change and rebuild 32-bit MAPI applications to run on a 64-bit platform, and 64-bit applications to run on a 32-bit platform.

Beginning with the Office 2010 release, Outlook is available as a 32-bit and a 64-bit application. The bitness of Outlook depends on the edition of the Windows operating system (32-bit or 64-bit) and the edition of Office 2010 (32-bit or 64-bit) that is installed on the computer, if Office is already installed on that computer.

Some of the factors that determine the feasibility of installing a 32-bit or a 64-bit version of Outlook include:

32-bit Office 2010 (and 32-bit Outlook 2010) can be installed on a supported 32-bit or 64-bit edition of the Windows operating system. 64-bit Office 2010 (and 64-bit Outlook 2010) can be installed only on a supported 64-bit operating system.

The default installation of Office 2010 on a 64-bit edition of the Windows operating system is 32-bit Office 2010.

The bitness of an installed version of Outlook is always the same as the bitness of Office 2010, if Office is installed on the same computer. In other words, a 32-bit version of Outlook 2010 cannot be installed on the same computer that already has 64-bit versions of other Office 2010 applications installed, such as 64-bit Microsoft Word 2010 or 64-bit Microsoft Excel 2010. Similarly, a 64-bit version of Outlook 2010 cannot be installed on the same computer that already has 32-bit versions of other Office applications installed.

MAPI applications include standalone applications such as Microsoft Communicator and MFCMAPI, and service providers such as address book, store, and transport providers. For MAPI method and function calls to work in a MAPI application (with the exception of one Simple MAPI function, MAPISendMail), the bitness of the MAPI application must be the same as the bitness of the MAPI subsystem on the computer in which the application is targeted to run. The bitness of the MAPI subsystem, in turn, is determined by and is always the same as, the bitness of the installed version of Outlook. For information about how to prepare MAPI applications for 32-bit and 64-bit platforms, see Building MAPI Applications on 32-bit and 64-bit Platforms on the MSDN Web site.

If you are upgrading from a version of Outlook that is Microsoft Outlook 2003 or earlier, consider the following issues.

Public Folders

Public folders are optional on Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2010servers. If you upgrade to Exchange Server 2010 and Outlook 2010 and choose not to deploy public folders on Exchange Server 2010, any solution that uses public folders will fail. In addition, because the Organizational Forms Library is dependent on public folders, you must migrate the custom forms published in the Organizational Forms Library to a Personal Forms Library.

One-off Outlook 97-2003 Forms

In earlier versions of Outlook, it was possible to distribute a custom form over the Internet as a one-off form without having to publish it and distribute it in a public folder or Organizational Forms Library. To do so, you enabled the Send form definition with item option on the Properties tab in the Forms Designer, and then Outlook sent the form as part of an underlying Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format (TNEF) attachment. While some Internet-based servers strip the TNEF section of the messages, most servers today support it and Outlook users can receive and use the custom form. However, since Office Outlook 2007, Outlook no longer supports one-off forms sent as TNEF attachments. When Outlook converts incoming Internet messages from MIME to MAPI format, it ignores the custom form. If you are customizing forms, consider using form regions and distributing custom forms with add-ins.

Developing Outlook 2010 Solutions for 32-bit and 64-bit Systems

angelgolfer — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:43:00 GMT

This post captures and summarizes information about developing an Outlook solution for customers who run 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Outlook 2010. Since developing Outlook solutions is a very broad subject, the article gathers information from various sources, and points to some of these locations for further details.

Bitness Compatibility Between Windows and Office 2010

Let’s first talk about the compatibility of the bitness of Windows, Microsoft Office, and Microsoft Outlook. The term “bitness” refers to the distinction between 32-bit and 64-bit processor architectures and the associated compatibility of applications. In this blog, “bitness” is used to qualify the version of Windows, Office, Outlook, or an application built to suit a 32-bit or 64-bit processor architecture of a computer. Each Office 2010 application is available in a 32-bit version and 64-bit version. For Outlook 2010, the bitness of Outlook depends on the bitness of Windows and the bitness of any other Office application that is already installed on that computer. Here are the dependencies:

· On a 32-bit Windows operating system, you can only install 32-bit Office (and 32-bit Outlook).

· On a 64-bit Windows operating system, you can install either 32-bit Office (and 32-bit Outlook), or 64-bit Office (and 64-bit Outlook). The default installation of Office 2010 on 64-bit Windows is 32-bit Office (and 32-bit Outlook).

· If some other Office 2010 application is already installed on a computer, then the bitness of Outlook 2010 that you will install must be consistent. For example, if a 32-bit Excel 2010 is already installed on a computer, you can only install 32-bit Outlook 2010 on that computer. Similarly, if a 64-bit Word 2010 is already installed on a computer, then you can only install 64-bit Outlook 2010.

Default Installation Locations

The following are the default installation locations when you install Office 2010:

· For a computer running 32-bit Windows, typically the location is C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\.

· For a computer running 32-bit Office on 64-bit Windows, typically the location is C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\.

· And, for a computer running 64-bit Office, typically the location is C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\.

Major Categories of Outlook Solutions

Outlook solutions fall into a few major categories:

· Add-ins written in managed languages (such as C# or Visual Basic), or standalone applications and add-ins written in unmanaged languages (such as C++ or Visual Basic 6.0). Note that Microsoft no longer supports Visual Basic 6.0.

· Macros written in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).

· Messaging API (MAPI) applications written in typically C++.

The following sections describe the issues that developers of each category of Outlook solutions have to be aware of when planning the availability of their solutions for Outlook 2010.

Managed Add-ins, and Unmanaged Applications and Add-ins for Outlook

Basically, the way to call the Outlook object model remains the same*, regardless of whether the add-ins are going to be run on a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Outlook 2010.

You do not need to recompile existing (32-bit) managed or unmanaged add-ins, if you expect the add-ins to continue to run only on computers with 32-bit Outlook installed.

In particular, for existing managed add-ins, make sure that you have built them using Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office system 3.0, or Microsoft Office development tools in Visual Studio 2010, with the Any CPU option for target platform on the Build tab of the Project Properties dialog box. Add-ins built with such settings work for (both 32-bit and) 64-bit versions of Office 2010. If you used other settings, rebuild your managed add-ins using the specified settings so that they will run on computers with either 32-bit or 64-bit Outlook 2010 installed.

Any existing unmanaged, standalone application (in .exe) that runs outside of the Outlook process written for 32-bit Outlook does not require recompilation for 64-bit Outlook, as long as the application interacts with Outlook using the Outlook object model and not MAPI. (For MAPI applications, see the section “MAPI Applications for Outlook” below.) COM manages the marshaling from the 32-bit application to 64-bit Outlook.

However, if you expect any existing unmanaged add-in will be run on computers with 64-bit Outlook 2010, you must recompile the add-in for 64-bit Outlook 2010. To clarify, you will have one version of the add-in to run on 32-bit Outlook, and another version of the add-in to run on 64-bit Outlook. Because there is no 64-bit Visual Basic 6.0 runtime, existing unmanaged add-ins written in Visual Basic 6.0 targeting to run on 64-bit Outlook 2010 should be rewritten, for example, as a managed add-in in Visual Basic.

*Note that even though you make calls the same way if you are targeting an add-in to run on 32-bit Outlook 2010 vs 64-bit Outlook 2010, there are changes in the Outlook 2010 object model such that, if you adapt an existing add-in to use the object model of Outlook 2010, you must be aware of the following:

· Object model calls in previous versions of Outlook were based on the assumption that there was only one Exchange account per profile. This assumption is not correct in Outlook 2010, since there can be multiple Exchange accounts per profile.

· Existing add-ins that modify a command bar or use Application events for shortcut menus may not work as expected in Outlook 2010. Update these add-ins to use the Office Fluent user interface extensibility. For more information, see Extending the User Interface in Outlook 2010.

VBA Macros for Outlook

If you have existing macros written for (32-bit) Outlook, and you intend to allow users to run the macros on 64-bit Outlook 2010, you will have to recompile the macros using Visual Basic for Applications 7.0 (VBA 7), and use conditional compilation to assure backward compatibility as well as compatibility with 64-bit Outlook. You will need to update any Declare statements, as well as address pointers and window handles in user-defined types used by Declare statements. If your macros use any ActiveX controls, these ActiveX controls will have to be updated for 64-bit Outlook as well. For more details, see Compatibility Between the 32-bit and 64-bit Versions of Office 2010.

MAPI Applications for Outlook

If your existing 32-bit MAPI application is going to be running on a computer with 64-bit Outlook installed, you will need to rebuild your 32-bit application as a 64-bit application. Outlook 2010 provides a set of MAPI header files that support MAPI applications to work with both 32-bit and 64-bit Outlook 2010. Make sure you download these header files from Outlook 2010: MAPI Header Files and rebuild your MAPI application using these header files.

In general, the bitness of the MAPI application must be the same as the bitness of the MAPI subsystem on the computer that the application is targeted to run on. The bitness of the MAPI subsystem, in turn, is determined by and always the same as the bitness of the installed version of Outlook. So if you plan to develop a MAPI application that will be run on computers with either a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Outlook 2010 installed, you will need to build two separate versions of the application, one to work with 32-bit Outlook and one to work with 64-bit Outlook.

For more information about MAPI support for 64-bit Outlook, see Building MAPI Applications on 32-Bit and 64-Bit Platforms.

Aside from rebuilding MAPI applications, sometimes it's necessary to check the version of Outlook to ensure that a MAPI application calls API elements that are supported by the currently running version of Outlook.

To learn how to check the version of Outlook and whether the installed version of Outlook is 64-bit Outlook 2010, see How to: Check the Version of Outlook.

Also, to learn how to decipher Outlook version information and the expected values for different parts of a version string for certain released versions of Outlook, see How to determine Outlook version information.

New features in Outlook 2010!

angelgolfer — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:38:00 GMT

On July 13, Microsoft announced that Microsoft Office 2010 reached the Technical Preview engineering milestone. Even though the Office 2010 Technical Preview bits and most of the documentation are available to only participants of the Technical Preview program, we're excited to be able to start blogging about new features and documentation.

The Outlook 2010 MAPI Reference (Technical Preview) is one of the first Office 2010 developer references made available to the general public at this milestone. This release of the Outlook MAPI Reference includes documentation for API elements updated for 64-bit MAPI, and a download for Outlook 2010 MAPI header files. If you plan to have existing 32-bit MAPI applications or new MAPI applications running on a 64-bit operating system with 64-bit Outlook, you will need to build your MAPI applications as 64-bit applications with these header files. Other new content in this release includes fast shutdown support for MAPI clients, 38 new properties, and how to link explicitly to MAPI functions. A summary of new features is in What's New in This Edition.

Apart from Outlook 2010 MAPI, Outlook 2010 offers new features in the object model in the Technical Preview release. Some of the major OM features include the following:

A new Conversation object that groups Outlook items that belong to the same "thread" across folders and stores. The Conversation object provides methods to navigate and enumerate items in a conversation hierarchy, and access items in a conversation with a new light-weight SimpleItems collection. You can also programmatically manage the assigning of categories, marking items as read or unread, and cleaning up of a conversation in ways similar to that offered in the Outlook user interface.
A new SolutionsModule object that allows Outlook applications to expose a set of one or more folders in the Navigation Pane under the new navigation module, Solutions. There is only one Solutions module that all applications share. When the Solutions module shows folders for only one application, the label can be customized, for example, changed from the default label Solutions to Marketing Project. The Solutions module shows folders from each application in its own grouping. Each application has a corresponding solution root folder in the Solutions module. Subfolders can contain items of different item types. One rule is that a solution root folder and its subfolders must reside on the same store. If the solution root folder is the root folder of a store, then all subfolders of the store root folder are displayed under the solution root folder.
A new MobileItem object that represents an SMS or MMS message and supports incorporating mobile messages into Outlook applications. Even though the MobileItem object does not have the full functionality as other Outlook items such as the MailItem object, you can programmatically create a MobileItem object, specify the recipients, subject, and message content, and send the MobileItem object using a specific Outlook Mobile Services account.
Extensions to the Account object that supports multiple Exchange accounts.
Ability to programmatically customize the Outlook user interface in the following areas:

* Explorer Ribbons
* Inspector Ribbons
* Menus
* Context menus
* Contact Card context menus
* Backstage view
You can customize these areas using Ribbon extensibility, and supply Ribbon XML to the GetCustomUI method of the IRibbonExtensibility interface. Use the Ribbon ID for the feature to determine the XML to pass as a returned value in the GetCustomUI method. Your Ribbon XML typically supplies callbacks that let you respond to a button click, or control visibility or the icon of your Ribbon controls. Use the IRibbonControl.Context object to identify the active window containing the user interface that triggers the callback procedure.

Documentation for the Solutions module and customizing Outlook user interface is currently available to participants of the Technical Preview program. Most developer documentation for Outlook 2010 new features will be available to the public before the launch of Office 2010. I will keep you all posted about further documentation availability.

Where is the MAPI documentation?

angelgolfer — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Some internal partners and external customers have asked where to find the Messaging API (MAPI) documentation. Coincidentally, there were some updating issues on the MSDN server for a couple of days around the middle of the month, which caused corruption in the MSDN table of contents, looking for the MAPI documentation became a more frustrating experience.

The MAPI Programmer's Reference that the Microsoft Exchange Server group has supported for years on MSDN has been updated and republished as the Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 Messaging API (MAPI) Reference (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc765775.aspx). About two years ago, the Exchange Server group decided that they will not continue to support the MAPI documentation. Microsoft Office Outlook, being a major MAPI client itself and having many of its customers developing MAPI solutions to work with Outlook, took over the MAPI documentation and updated it last year. The resultant documentation is the Outlook 2007 MAPI Reference, which focuses on developing MAPI solutions for Outlook 2007. There are now more current code samples and numerous additional MAPI properties. Content that is no longer relevant to Outlook 2007 has been removed. For what is new and what has changed, see What's New in This Edition.

For the next few months, if you click old bookmarks set up on a browser marking Web pages of the MAPI Programmer's Reference, you will see a short passage pointing you to the Outlook 2007 MAPI Reference and other alternative Exchange references. In the longer term, the redirection from the Exchange content to the corresponding Outlook content will be automatic. For the time being, set up and navigate using new bookmarks to the Outlook content. Some URLs have been specified in this blog for your convenience; in Internet Explorer, just right-click the link and click Add to Favorites.

As some of us are aware, new content on the Internet requires anywhere from weeks to months for search engines to crawl and index, before these search engines return this new content in customer searches. The Outlook 2007 MAPI Reference was published on December 3, 2008; if you search now, in January 2009, for specific MAPI interfaces, such as the following:

Or any of the other 30 documented MAPI interfaces or 885 MAPI properties, you probably won't see results from the Outlook 2007 MAPI Reference ranked high on the list of returned results yet. Meanwhile, the way to look for documentation for specific MAPIs is to browse the table of contents on the left navigation pane of the MSDN Library. For example, if you are looking for a reference topic on a MAPI, and you don't yet have the Outlook 2007 MAPI Reference bookmarked, expand the following nodes in the navigation pane:

MSDN Library
Office Development
2007 Microsoft Office System
Outlook 2007
Outlook 2007 MAPI Reference
Reference

Should the unfortunate event of last week's MSDN server update incident happen again, causing the Outlook 2007 MAPI Reference to temporarily disappear from the table of contents, feel free to send an e-mail to o12devdx@microsoft.com. Keeping our fingers crossed, with increased use of this documentation over the next few months, finding documentation on the Outlook 2007 MAPI Reference will become more efficient.

We Get E-mails: Where Are the Object Members?

soliver — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 00:39:13 GMT

The object model reference documentation for the Office client applications (Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access, etc., etc.) provides detailed information about the associated properties, methods, and events for objects that are exposed through the API of each client application. This information is crucial if you develop applications that automate the client applications. You can find this documentation on both MSDN and within the help content that appears when you press the F1 key while using the Visual Basic Editor in one of the Office client applications.

The way this documentation is structured in the table of contents (TOC) in MSDN, the topmost topic node in the TOC is the object and under the main object topic node, you'll find the nodes for the associated properties, methods, and events.

For example, this is how Word's Document object topic and associated member topics are arranged in the TOC on MSDN:

From there you can easily see that there is a node to a topic ("Document Object Members") that lists all the members associated with the Document object.

But sometimes readers are not browsing the TOC. They might get to the object's main page through a link in a search result or from some other web link. The object's main page looks like this (again using the Document object as an example):

So we get e-mails--"Hey! Where is the list of object members?" For one reason or another, many readers end up on the main page for an object and expect to see a list of the object's members. While there isn't a list of all the object's members on this page, there is a link to the topic that shows all the members for an object. Unfortunately the link is tucked away at the bottom of the page under the See Also section, so it's easy to miss:

Clicking the <Object Name> Object Members link takes you to the topic that shows you all the object's members:

The story is similar for the "F1" help documentation. The main object topic has a link at the bottom that takes you to the topic that lists all the members for the object. Here's the Word Document Object topic in the client help viewer (note the link to the Document Object Members topic under See Also at the bottom):

The link then takes you to the Document Object Members topic where you can see all the objects listed:

Open XML SDK 2.0 CTP Available

soliver — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:12:00 GMT

The Open XML SDK 2.0 Community Technology Preview (CTP) is here!

You can find the documentation for it here and the SDK download here.

Zeyad Rajabi, a Program Manager for the Open XML SDK, has begun a series of posts covering the Open XML SDK design goals and architecture, sprinkling in some sample code as he goes along.

Also, Eric White, a Microsoft Technical Evangelist, has a great write up on the new version of the SDK.

This new version of the SDK is an amazing leap forward.The Open XML SDK version 1 greatly simplified working with packages. Developers could manipulate Open XML file format compliant documents at the package and part levels using strongly typed .NET classes. To access the file formats at the element level, you still had to work directly with the underlying XML.

In the Open XML SDK version 2, the development team has taken most of the elements in the various schemas for the Open XML file formats (WordprocessingML, SpreadsheetML, PresentationML, etc., etc.) and made first-class managed objects out of them. Not to mention the fact that they've "linq-ified" the entire API so you have the power of Linq, as well.

This makes things much easier if, like me, working with XML directly isn’t your strong suit. With the Open XML SDK v2, I can work with objects that represent the XML elements instead of having to work in the underlying XML itself (although the SDK also supports LINQ to XML, as well). For instance, suppose I needed to locate the first table in a Word document. I could easily locate the first table present in the document with code like this:

   1: using (WordprocessingDocument theDoc = WordprocessingDocument.Open(location, true))

   2: {

   3:     MainDocumentPart mainPart = theDoc.MainDocumentPart;

4:

   5:     Table theTable = mainPart.Document.Descendants<Table>().First();

You can see the advantage of using this new version of the SDK in line 5 of the code snippet where, by specifying that I want to filter for descendants of the Document object (which represents the <w:document> element in the Microsoft implementation of the Open XML WordprocessingML) where the descendant is of type Table (that is, I want all <w:tbl> elements), I can immediately get to the tables in my Word document. Then, by using the First() extension method, I can select the first table element in the returned list of descendant table elements. All without having to do the detailed work of traversing the underlying XML directly; the API handles the XML work for me.

Or how about trying to get to the text in a specific cell in the Word 2007 table? I’m simplifying things a great deal, but let's assume I know which cell has the data I want (the cell in the 2nd row and 1st column):

   1: TableRow theRow = theTable.Elements<TableRow>().ElementAt(1);

2:

   3: TableCell theCell = theRow.Elements<TableCell>().ElementAt(0);

4:

   5: string cellText = theCell.InnerText;

6:

   7: Console.WriteLine("The 2nd row, 1st cell text is {0}", cellText);

So here I just use the same technique that I used above to find elements of a given type (by using the provided generic methods) in order to find the 2nd row of the table (<TableRow>().ElementAt(1)) and the first cell (<TableCell>().ElementAt(0)). Then I just pull the value of the Cell object's InnerText property and it's done! Although there are other ways to use the SDK to get the same data, you can still see that with only a few lines of code, I'm able to do quite a bit without working directly in the underlying XML. And remember, we can do this type of manipulation WITHOUT running the client application (in this case Microsoft Word 2007).

The Office Client Developer Content team (my team) has some great examples on the MSDN web site here. Check it out!

Open XML SDK 1.0 Available

dhale — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 01:26:00 GMT

Just read fantastic news from Erika Ehrli Cabral that the Open XML SDK 1.0 is now available. She writes:

"The Open XML Format SDK Technology Preview simplifies the task of manipulating Open XML packages. The Open XML Application Programming Interface (API) encapsulates many common tasks that developers perform on Open XML packages, so you can perform complex operations with just a few lines of code. Using this API, you can programmatically generate and manipulate Word 2007 documents, Excel 2007 spreadsheets, and PowerPoint 2007 presentations. The programming model uses managed code, so it's safe for server-side scenarios.

The Open XML Format SDK also provides how-to articles and reference documentation that can help you get started with Open XML programming."

See her post for details on where to download.

Open XML Format SDK April CTP

dhale — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 02:15:00 GMT

Erika has a detailed post on the new release of the Open XML Format SDK, as well as the future of the SDK. The Client Dev Docs team is looking forward to creating the new components (Version 2.0, below) of the SDK over the coming year.

Usage Analysis of the Access Developer Reference

Mike Stowe — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 02:07:00 GMT

The 2007 Microsoft Office System was released into the wild about a year ago. I’d like to share what we've learned about your usage of the Access 2007 Developer Reference since its release. BTW, I'm Mike Stowe, the programmability writer for Access.

The data that drives this analysis comes from users who are in a "connected" state while using the Access Developer Reference. When you're in a connected state, help topics are being served to the Help window from Office Online. This is the first time we've had the opportunity to collect usage data and comments from our users. David Hale's Let's Talk about Office VBA Help post contains more information about this connection and how it benefits everyone.

I'll begin by borrowing a chart from David's post. It summarizes the total page views for the top Office 2007 developer references.

I never tire of looking at this one. The Access topics receive, by far, the most views. The Excel and Visual Basic Core topics are also utilized fairly often. We've always known that the Access Developer community was large, but this is the first time that we've had data that compares the relative usage of each content set.

Note that the chart doesn't contain the actual number of page views. I can't share any specific numbers with you, but I hope that you find this analysis useful without them.

The Access Developer Reference is made up of several components. The Access object model help is the core component of the developer reference. Help for DAO, ADO, the Access SQL functions and the Access error messages are the other components included in the Access Developer Reference. In earlier versions of Access, the help topics for each of these components were scattered on your hard disk in separate .chm files. In Access 2007, we unified the components into one browsable, searchable unit.

The next chart breaks down the usage of the Access Developer Reference by component.

This chart reveals the single biggest surprise of our analysis. The error topics make up 1/3 of the page views! We had NO IDEA that this was the case. I'll discuss the ramifications of this finding later when we examine the most-viewed error topics.

Object topics

Which individual topics are used the most? Let's start by examining the top 20 object or collection help topics in the Access Developer Reference.

DoCmd. Form. Application. ComboBox. That's pretty much what I expected to see at or near the top of this chart.

Member topics

Next, let's take a look at the top 20 member topics.

The first thing you'll notice is that the most view topic, DataType Property, isn't part of the Access object model. This topic appears when you press F1 in the Data Type column while in table design view. It's also the most-commented topic outside of the error topics

I don't see any surprises among the actual object model topics in the rest of the chart.

Error topics

Now, let's examine the top 20 error topics.

As I said earlier, I can't share specific numbers, but the top three error topics tower over the rest of the topics in both page views and comments. The interesting data is in the comments left for each topic rather than the page views.

The comments reveal that the topics aren't appropriate for the audience. The topics contain developer-focused terminology such as "Null" and "primary key". The topics were written for a developer who would likely understand the issue and trap the error before it surfaces to their user. Most of the comments appear to come from information workers who just want to make their form work!

I'm going to start addressing these problems by rewriting the topics for the top three errors in a way that will better serve an information worker tasked with using an Access form.

Comment Analysis

The page view data is a useful for spotting usage trends, but comments are much more useful for improving individual topics. Examining all of your comments has revealed the following points:

The top error topics have been, by far, commented on the most.
The DataType Property topic has many people asking about data types for items such as phone numbers and social security numbers. The topic should be modified to clearly explain the relation of a field's Format and Input Mask properties to its data type.
The ValidationRule topics need many more examples.
The new help layout has spawned a couple of common usage issues. You should take a moment to view Quick Tips on using VBA Help with Office video if you've ever wondered why there isn't a table of contents or where to find a list of properties, methods, and events for a particular object.
There have been 84 specific "How do I?" requests.
74 topics contain a general request for code sample.

Most of the topics never reach a critical mass of comments, so the "How do I?" and code sample requests indicate where we should invest our time and resources.

The Bottom Line

The data clearly indicates that the top error topics should be rewritten. I'm working on top three error topics right now.

The DataType Property topic would be more useful if it better explained the relationship between a field's DataType, Format, and Input Mask properties. That's on my to-do list.

I'll prioritize and address "How do I?" and code sample requests as time allows. Requests that touch on the most-used object and members receive the highest priority.

I'd love to hear from you if you have any questions or comments about the Access Developer Reference.

Microsoft Office Excel 2007 VBA Reference Feedback

Siosalach — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 22:23:00 GMT

Greetings.

My name is Rod Chisholm and I am the Programming Writer for Excel client VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) and Programmability. Our reference material is available in the box, on MSDN, and NOW on Office Online. This gives us the unique opportunity to gather ratings and feedback from our users to help strengthen our topics, and improve the help experience overall. As my manager, David Hale pointed out early this month in Let's Talk about Office VBA Help, Excel is ranked in the top three for hit counts on Office Online. So we are certainly getting traction and visibility. From all those hits approximately 1 out of 100 leaves a rating. Of those, about 1 out of 5 leaves a comment. With comments, there is less guess work as to why a topic gets attention, so the more, the merrier.

Are we listening?

Yes we are! For those who think that comments are dropped into a black hole, let me assure you that I have reviewed all the data and comments since the launch of Office 2007. Although there were a vast number of comments, most could be categorized in five or six areas. The areas of interest to me were the requests for codes samples, and the “how-to”, or “how do I” feedback. Both are key indicators that the reference material in these areas should be where time is invested. So, thank you for participating. You are making a difference.

Here is a breakdown of some trends and areas of focus for content improvement, based on site hits and your comments (special thank you to Mike Stowe, Access Programming Writer for help with data analysis):

Top Object Hits

Huge generators of site hits include Range, Application, Worksheet, Sheets, Workbook and Worksheets to no surprise. These Objects are used most frequently and essential to workbook navigation.

Top Member Hits

To me it looks like a pretty even distribution of hits, but the common denominator here is Range making up 10 of the Top 20. Range will be a primary focus for content ideas moving forward.

Top "How to" Topics

The bottom line is that Range and how to navigate within a worksheet seem to be the heavy favorites when it comes to hit counts and comments. So, look forward to content improvements, more code samples and additional topics around hot areas of Excel. Until next time, please keep the feedback coming. I'm listening.

For more information check out the Excel Developer Portal and the Excel Team Blog.

Please post a comment if you have any questions or concerns.

Cheers.

RdC ~Excel

Outlook 2007 Developer Reference updated on MSDN!

angelgolfer — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 05:08:00 GMT

The Outlook 2007 Developer Reference has been updated on MSDN on November 13, 2007! This Reference contains conceptual, reference, and programming task topics, guiding developers to program Outlook using the Outlook Object Model. This is the first update to the Reference on MSDN in ten months since January. Over the last ten months, more than fifty improvements and fixes involving hundreds of topics have been applied to this set of documentation. The following are some of the areas of improvement:

- Search and Filter – Clarified certain concepts about DASL and Jet queries, added new code snippets and programming task topics, including Filtering Items Using a String Comparison, How to: Search the Calendar for Appointments Within a Date Range that Contain a Specific Word in the Subject, and How to: Search the Calendar for Appointments that Occur Partially or Entirely in a Given Time Period,

- Enumerating, Searching, and Filtering Items in a Folder - Clarified how to obtain a writeable object from a row in a Table that supports read-write operations.

- AdvancedSearch method of the Application object – Clarified the limit of simultaneous searches.

- Address Book – Added a new programming task topic How to: Map a Display Name to an E-mail Address.

- Items, Folders, and Stores – Added a new programming task topic How to: Delete All Items and Subfolders in the Deleted Items Folder.

- NewMailEx event of the Application object – Added precautions to take when obtaining the Entry ID of the new item.

- OlUserPropertyType enumeration – Supplemented the constants in the OlUserPropertyType enumeration with corresponding MAPI type values. For example, the constant olDateTime maps to the MAPI type PT_SYSTIME.

- Automating Outlook from a Visual Basic Application – Clarified the security reason for a VBA application to use the trusted Application object intrinsic to the environment, except when the application intends to automate a separate instance of Outlook. All code samples in the Reference have been scrubbed to reinforce this concept.

I would like to thank Outlook MVP, Sue Mosher, who over the last year helped us improve our documentation by going through a large volume of the topics in the Outlook 2007 Developer Reference and giving us valuable feedback.

In case you are wondering, ten months seem to be a long time to wait for an update, the client applications of 2007 Microsoft Office system are capable of continuously refreshing developer reference content through Help in the product when you select to search and obtain content on Office Online! Through this mechanism, all the improvements and fixes included in this update on MSDN were actually already pushed on Office Online within a day after the corresponding topics had been modified. If this sounds novel to you, stay tuned, I will talk more about this next time.

Video: Quick Tips on using VBA Help with Office

dhale — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 01:28:00 GMT

There are some quick and easy things you can do to make sure you are getting the optimal VBA Developer Help experience when working with the 2007 Office System. Watch this three minute video to learn more.

Welcome

dhale — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 18:07:00 GMT

Hello. My name is David Hale and I am a new Content Publishing Manager at Microsoft Corporation in the Office organization.

The people on my team produce the developer-oriented content (published on MSDN and Office Online) for the following applications:

Microsoft Word
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Access
Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft InfoPath and InfoPath Forms Service
Microsoft Visio
Microsoft OneNote
Microsoft Publisher

We also maintain MSDN Web sites for those applications. We’ll be using this blog for updates on published content, upcoming content, and engagement opportunities with the people who produce the core developer documentation for the Microsoft Office client applications!

Please post a comment if you have any questions!

David