Customization, Automation, Addins and Life

The reports of VBA's demise have been greatly exaggerated.

2008-01-17T21:34:00Z

There have been spurious reports in the media saying that VBA is dead. Caused quite a firestorm around here as you might imagine -- 'cause it just plain isn't true. There is an official statement on the VSTO blog here: \ http://blogs.msdn.com/vsto2/archive/2008/01/16/the-reports-of-vba-s-demise-have-been-greatly-exaggerated.aspx...(read more)

VSTO Architecture Demo from TechEd and MSDN WebCast

2007-12-01T04:44:00Z

Good news here -- for me especially :). The demo code from my VSTO Architecture talk at TechEd and in the recent MSDN WebCast is already (mostly) posted here. My colleague Andrew Whitechapel had written the WPF Control and the WCF service that I used in my demo -- which really makes it mostly his demo (thanks Andrew). Anyway, I went to ask him if I could post the code, and noticed the latest issue of MSDN Magazine on his desk with a VSTO article, and lo and behold, he published virtually the same...(read more)

TechEd and MSDN Webcast Demos

2007-12-01T03:17:00Z

Geez, I'm looking at this blog, and I'm realizing I've only posted once this year, and that post said I would post more often. What a lame-o! Since my last post I have been busy. I've spoken at two TechEds -- in the US in Orlando and in Europe in Barcelona. I totally recommend Barcelona for anyone who hasn't been there, what a great city! But I digress. I've been asked by several people to make available the demo code that I showed at the TechEds. I had a talk on VSTO Architecture at both, and had...(read more)

Back Into the Light

2007-06-14T21:18:00Z

And out of the dark... I've been dark for a while now, time to come out and let you know what's been going on. I've been heads down writing code for VSTO v3 and VSTA v2 due to release -- hopefully, no promises -- later this year. The new version of VSTO is built upon the new version of VSTA which is built upon the new version of System.Addin. And the new version of System.AddIn is shipping in the .NET Framework 3.5 as promised. It has been a ton of work, but we are close to being done now. Those...(read more)

VSTA and Generics

2006-12-05T10:10:00Z

VSTA has been officially released now, in InfoPath in the 2007 Office System, and for use by third parties in the VS SDK. So we're getting our first batch of feature requests. Far and away the biggest request so far is generic support. Admittedly, generic support for VSTA hosts is limited. I know it's an excuse, but we had limited time and resources to get VSTA done in time for Office 2007, and we had to make some hard choices. One of the reasons generic support was considered "cut-able" was that...(read more)

Outlook 2007 Form Region Sample – Second Edition

2006-12-01T09:28:00Z

Office 2007 is official today, so it is time to update my Form Region Sample. The big difference is new methods on the _FormRegionStartup interface. With input from us here in VSTO, Outlook changed the interface to make it easier to use from VSTO addins and more friendly to managed dlls. The two new methods mean I could remove a bunch of the workarounds in the previous version. The new interface looks like this: public interface _FormRegionStartup { void BeforeFormRegionShow( FormRegion FormRegion);...(read more)

Outlook 2007 Form Region Sample

2006-10-31T02:02:00Z

I've finally finished my Form Region Sample for Outlook 2007 that was promised. I've been working on it in earnest for a couple weeks now in my spare time. I am now resisting the urge to continue tweaking it: it is time to lockdown and ship. The urge to tweak is there because this is something I'm actually going to use all of the time. Outlook 2007, you may have noticed, has a new folder for RSS feeds, so you can get your blogs right in Outlook. This is cool, but I wanted to change how the posts...(read more)

Back in Redmond

2006-10-11T02:49:00Z

It's good to be home. But we had a great time in Europe and learned a ton. The best thing I learned is that ISVs are using VSTO and using it well. Hopefully they learned from us as well. I have nothing but good things to say about the Frontline program, it was a rousing success. I was happy to see that VB .NET is being used in several companies. VB suffered a bit of a downturn recently, but it survives and is being used extensively in Office customization. C# is being used extensively as well, of...(read more)

On the road in Europe

2006-10-01T22:55:00Z

It has been almost two weeks now since I arrived in Europe. As noted, I had hoped to blog more, but with all of the working, sight-seeing, eating, drinking and travelling -- not to mention very intermittent internet availability -- I haven't really had a chance. I am in Vienna now (Wien to the locals, of course). I started in Munich as I noted, and if you are interested I did manage to make an entry on my personal blog about my experiences at Oktoberfest. We then travelled to Nuremburg, which is...(read more)

Catching up: Cypress (VSTO 2005 SE), Frontline and more...

2006-09-20T07:31:00Z

Wow, I can't beleive that it has been more than two months since I posted, but the numbers don't lie. It has been an eventful summer. We've been working like dogs on new features that you will be hearing about in the fullness of time. I also had a nice long vacation in Chatham, MA. Worth a visit if you can make it, it's on the elbow of Cape Cod. Anyway, I'm sure you've all heard by now about Cypress-- er, I mean VSTO 2005 SE (if you want to see the full name -- and download the beta -- click here...(read more)

Using Windows Presentation Foundation in VSTO -- with "Cross-bow"

2006-07-12T02:38:00Z

I've been working on this on and off since TechEd. I had a customer ask if it was possible to use WPF (formerly Avalon) in a VSTO Custom Task Pane. It is possible, and we're dealing with CTP (Community Technical Preview) releases on top of beta releases, so considering that, it works fairly well. I told the customer I'd write up a quick little sample to show him how it is done, and I decided to share that sample here as well. It didn't turn out to be as quick as I'd hoped, but at long last it is...(read more)

TechEd 06: Chalk-talk today, MAF 101

2006-06-14T16:58:00Z

I'm doing a "chalk-talk" today at TechEd -- at 3:45 in DEV (Blue area) Theatre 1 in the TLC. The listed subject is Designing Managed Add-ins for Reliability, Security and Versioning, the same subject of the talk Jim and I did at PDC. I've refined the talk a lot since then. I've been giving this presentation internally at Microsoft (and JackG and I have been doing webcasts with it recently) for the MS developers that are now implementing MAF-based models. Of course VSTA is based on MAF. So InfoPath...(read more)

TechEd 06: VSTO 'v3' talk this afternoon

2006-06-12T15:34:00Z

Mike Hernandez and I are speaking today (3:15 in room 153) about VSTO 'v3' and what we are doing with Office 2007. We'll be showing several demos of the new programmability features enabled by the next version of VSTO in Office 2007. VSTO 'v3' will release with VS 'Orcas,' and our talk will focus on the features we'll be enabling then. However, there are some late-breaking additions to our talk. We'll also be talking about the VSTO "Cypress" release and some of the demos show what you can expect...(read more)

VSTO 'v3' June CTP can run VSTO 2005 customizations

2006-06-07T03:12:00Z

One of the biggest complaints we had on the February CTP of VSTO v3 was that you couldn't run your VSTO 2005 customizations in Office 2007. I'm happy to say we fixed that problem in the latest CTP for June. What this means is that when you get the VSTO v3 June CTP your old customizations will continue to run in Office 2007. It does not mean there won't be any problems, though. It is a CTP, and there are likely issues. We haven't done extensive testing in this area yet, but we've recieved anecdotal...(read more)

VSTO 'v3' June CTP and WinFX Beta 2

2006-06-07T01:15:00Z

So many of you have noticed that we got a little surprised by WinFX Beta2. The June Customer Technical Preview (CTP) of VSTO 'v3' requires February CTP of the WinFX Runtime Components along with Beta 2 of Office 2007. Well those Windows guys went and got their Beta 2 out at the same time. So it stands to reason that you would want the Beta 2 version of WinFX instead of the old Febrary CTP. Unfortunately, you have also noticed that the VSTO v3 CTP won't install over the Beta 2 version of WinFX. But...(read more)