Regarding attaching documents in custom Contact form

[Tim Chen]

Hi!

I'm developing a new custom contact form in a company for outlook.

The company keep track a list of documents for each client in the contact by
using a Document Panel that displays the documents as what you see in Icons
view in a windows explorer (large icons and small title text in the bottom).

I wonder if it's possible to make the documents display as the way you see
in detail view in the Windows Explorer? Similar way you view outlook mails.
(all files are listsed line by line, document type icon and file name are on
the the same line)

How do you make this happen in Outlook 2007? Thank you!

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Outlook doesn't have any built-in feature to do that, but it probably would be possible to use Visual Studio 2008 to build a VSTO add-in that uses a form region or custom task pane to show that kind of information data using an appropriate .NET control. Unfortunately, I'm not up to speed on just what .NET controls are good for showing icons and text together. I'm sure a .NET forum could help with that.

 

[Tim Chen]

Thank you for your reply!!

Then is there any other way to display the documents?

Or maybe to change the format or spacing or font size so it wil display the
full title text and make the icons smaller?

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

As a developer, you have only two choices -- use the built-in attachment well, which cannot be customized, that Outlook provides for HTML and plain text messages (RTF uses inline attachments)-- or provide your own interface.

I have no idea what this "Document Panel" is that you mentioned, but if it's a third-party tool, you'd have to ask its developers if it can be customized.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Microsoft Outlook 2007 Programming:
Jumpstart for Power Users and Administrators
http://www.outlookcode.com/article.aspx?id=54

 

[Tim Chen]

Hi!

I just figured out that it is using the All Mail Fields > Message

to put documents into the contact form.

The problem is that it displays large icons and cramped text when file names
are long.

I wonder if there is any formatting we can do for that field?

Thank you!

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Because a contact always uses rich-text as its body format, attachments are always inline with the item body and you have no control over how they look.

Again, if you want some other interface that shows the contents of the ContactItem.Attachments collection in a different way, you'd have to design that yourself, preferably as a form region in an Outlook add-in.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Microsoft Outlook 2007 Programming:
Jumpstart for Power Users and Administrators
http://www.outlookcode.com/article.aspx?id=54