Outlook Add-In

[Steve Haack]

All,
I am working with a customer that has an Add-In for Outlook that was
developed for Outlook 2000 and they are currently using it in Outlook 2003.

They are planning to migrate to Outlook 2010 this summer. Can someone point
me to what they need to know about how to make this add-in install and work
with Outlook2010?

Thanks,
Steve

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

Not enough information.

What language? Do they want to support 64-bit Outlook? Do they plan to
support the ribbon? How are they installing and what installer are they
using? Any ActiveX controls or dependencies? Any 3rd party controls? Are any
deprecated Windows OCX controls that aren't there in Vista or Win7 called?

I have some addins written originally for Outlook 2000 that run just fine as
is, others required extensive re-writes or even ports to other platforms.
Without a lot of information there's no way to tell what is required.

 

[Mr.Frog.to.you]

On this topic Ken, can you recommend a book or resource on add-ins for
OL2010? This looks as though it is going to be a common problem.....

Cheers

The Frog

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

As far as I know neither of the Outlook 2007 books that deal with addins
(Sue's doesn't, mine and Randy's do) are being updated for Outlook 2010.
Sue's book isn't being updated at all either though.

There are a lot of documents and such out there for 2010 on the Office
Developer Web site and on MSDN, that's what we've been using in the beta
testing. That's all we've had.

There was just some information released by Misha Shneerson of the VSTO team
on his blog about getting the COM shims to work in 64-bit mode, I've been
working with Misha on that, and there will be additional information
released soon by the VSTO team on 64-bit deployments for shared addins. I've
been discussing with them what we'll need so people know what to do.

Andrew Whitechapel's blog has some real good stuff on using ComImport's for
handling ribbon interfaces that applies nicely to Office 2010. Andrew was
also on the VSTO team and was a co-author with Misha of the COM shim
wizards.

Andrew has moved on to the XBox team, but I've been using his ribbon
interface information on ComImports to get my managed code addins to handle
everything from 2003 to 2010 when developed on 2003 setups.

Other than that it's just been a lot of trial and error, and then making
more changes as things change during the beta process.




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[Mr.Frog.to.you]

Thanks Ken. I will start having a dig through the information. Its the
64bit / 32 bit stuff I need to wrap my head around....

Much appreciated

The Frog

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

Yeah, the 64-bit stuff is all new and the documentation and help on it so
far has been minimal to abysmal. Information is starting to trickle out, but
some things are still fuzzy. One thing I need to spend a lot of time with is
that almost all of my code makes heavy use of Win32 API calls and I need to
get my head around that for 64-bit addins.




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[Steve Haack]

Ken,
I did some digging and here is what I found out. The program that they
developed is not a formal "outlook add-in". It is actually a standalone C++
app that they built which calls the Outlook Object model and gets some
calendar data.

It was exposed to the users in OL2000 and OL2003 by putting an Icon on the
toolbar that called the external .exe.

Is there a way that I can add this to the ribbon in OL2010 (x86 version)?

Thanks,
Steve

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

Yes, that can be added to the ribbon. You would need to use the ribbon
interfaces of course, and supply callbacks that would handle adding the
button by supplying ribbon XML and for the label, image, click handler, etc.

You might want to google for Andrew Whitechapel's blog, he used to be with
the VSTO team and his blog has some great information on handling the ribbon
interfaces without needing an Office 2007 or 2010 PIA by using COMImports.
His examples are for managed code but they could be adapted to unmanaged
C++.