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Adding to Ribbon at run time works once

Hi I'm trying to add the current open contacts phone numbers to a ribbon.
I have created the ribbon and added a SplitButton which will contain the phone numbers.
In 'ThisAddin' when the current explorer changes it triggers an event which simply gets the item type. If its a contact it calls
//ThisAddin.cs on explorer change event - if is contact run:
Globals.Ribbons.CallContact.AddButton(contactItem.BusinessTelephoneNumber);
//Ribbon class
internal void AddButton(string name)
{
if (name != null && name.Count() > 2)
{
RibbonButton item = Globals.Factory.GetRibbonFactory().CreateRibbonButton();
item.Label = name;
item.ShowLabel = true;
this.newSplit.Items.Add(item);
}
}
This works once, first time opening a contact the phone number is displayed in the ribbon. Opening another contact window will cause the ribbon items to be added but are blank and null.
I'm simply trying to add the contacts phone numbers to the ribbon and leave them there while the user can open another contact and the same code runs adding the phone numbers to the ribbon.
I don't need to keep reference to the items once they are added. Thank you for the help. I feel there needs to be an invoke in here somewhere.

You must tell Outlook to refresh the ribbon. See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/vsto/walkthrough-updating-the-controls-on-a-ribbon-at-run-time?view=vs-2019 for the sample code.
You will need to specify a callback to retrieve the button's caption instead of hard-coding it in the ribbon's XML.
Note that since you can have multiple inspectors open, you must provide data specific to each item opened in its own inspector.

The Ribbon UI is a static thing because it is loaded once at startup (or before the window is shown). The best what you can do is to define callbacks and get them called wherever you need. For example, you can define 'getVisible' callback for your ribbon controls instead of adding new elements at runtime.
The IRibbonUI.Invalidate method invalidates the cached values for all of the controls of the Ribbon user interface.
You can customize the Ribbon UI by using callback procedures in COM add-ins. For each of the callbacks that the add-in implements, the responses are cached.
For example, if an add-in writer implements the getImage callback procedure for a button, the function is called once, the image loads, and then if the image needs to be updated, the cached image is used instead of recalling the procedure. This process remains in place until the add-in signals that the cached values are invalid by using the Invalidate method, at which time, the callback procedure is again called and the return response is cached. The add-in can then force an immediate update of the UI by calling the Refresh method.
<customUI … OnLoad="MyAddinInitialize" …>
Dim MyRibbon As IRibbonUI
Sub MyAddInInitialize(Ribbon As IRibbonUI)
Set MyRibbon = Ribbon
End Sub
Sub myFunction()
MyRibbon.Invalidate() ' Invalidates the caches of all of this add-in's controls
End Sub
The Fluent UI is described in-depth in the following articles:
Customizing the 2007 Office Fluent Ribbon for Developers (Part 1 of 3)
Customizing the 2007 Office Fluent Ribbon for Developers (Part 2 of 3)
Customizing the 2007 Office Fluent Ribbon for Developers (Part 3 of 3)
Also, you may find the Walkthrough: Create a custom tab by using Ribbon XML helpful. Note, you can export an existing custom ribbon UI to the XML and continue dealing with a raw markup.

PowerPoint 2010 Custom TaskPane in multple windows

I am developing a custom task pane for Microsoft PowerPoint 2010. I need the task pane to be synchronized between multiple application windows/presentations. The task panes are displayed using a toggle button on the ribbon.
Since PowerPoint 2010 displays each presentation in a different document window (which is different from 2007), I need to create a task pane separately for each window and synchronize them. I have followed the Microsoft tutorial on how to create task panes for multiple application windows, and I am using the CustomTaskPaneCollection.Add(UserControl, String, Object) method to specify which application window the task pane should be associated with. In this case the Object is the PowerPoint.DocumentWindow that the task pane should be associated with.
For some reason all of my task panes are created in the active window and not the window that I assign. For example, if I open 3 PowerPoint presentations and then toggle the task pane, all three task panes will be added to the active window.
This is the code I am using to add the task panes when the toggle is pressed:
public void AddAllTaskPanes()
{
PowerPoint.DocumentWindows windows = Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.Windows;
if(windows.Count > 0)
{
for (int i=1; i<=windows.Count; i++){
PowerPoint.DocumentWindow window = windows[i];
customTaskPane = this.CustomTaskPanes.Add(new UserControl1(), "My User Control", window);
customTaskPane.Visible = true;
}
}
}
It seems that this should successfully add each task pane to its specified window, and I cannot figure out why all of the task panes are being associate with the active window instead. I have done a lot of research into this issue and have not been able to find a solution. The closest I have found was this question, however the answer corresponds to PowerPoint 2007 and not 2010 like the question references.
Any insight into why PowerPoint may be behaving this way would be greatly appreciated.

I went the way of creating the TaskPanes from the PresentationAfterOpen and PresentationAfterNew Events which produces the same behaviour.
A note about the PresentationAfterOpen event, if the document selected by the user is already open, the event is still fired so you need to check if the CustomTaskPane has already been created for that document before creating a new one.
A way to overcome this problem is to create a pointer to the associated DocumentWindow in your CustomPane and enumerate through the CustomTaskPaneCollection checking for the associated one.

c# Excel - Display ribbon on exit

I'm using VSTO to design an application with an Excel interface. I want to hide the ribbon on startup (shouldn't be needed in the application) and re-display it on exit (if the user had it originally displayed), to avoid irritating people who use the application and want a ribbon the next time they open Excel.
I can hide the ribbon using essentially the following code in ThisWorkbook_Startup (from this question Excel 2007 Minimize the Ribbon programatically but Not the menu bar):
Office.CommandBars cbs = null;
cbs = Application.CommandBars;
foreach (Office.CommandBar commandBar in cbs)
{
if (commandBar.Name == "Ribbon")
{
this.Application.ActiveWindow.Activate();
Application.SendKeys("^{F1}", true);
}
}
However, the same code or similar variations from the previously referenced question do not seem to work when placed in either the ThisWorkbook_Shutdown or ThisWorkbook_BeforeClose methods. The code is hit but never seems to execute - the ribbon is never restored.
Is there another way to restore the ribbon on exit?
Thanks,
Andrew

Dock Windows Forms (tabbed chat interface)

Edit for those who say to use tab control
I would love to use a tab control; yet i have no idea how to go about linking the tab control up from the main form. I would assume that I would have to do something like this:
Create Form with a blank TabControl on it, no pages created.
Create a CustomuserControl (Add -> user Control), with my controls on it.
When a new chat comes in, create a tab control Item, Tab Control Page, add the Custom Control to the Tab Control Page. Add the tab control handle to the hash table, so that when new messages come in, they can be referenced in the proper control.
But, i am so not sure how to do this. For example, I know that I can create custom events inside of the User Control, so that, for example, if each control has a 'bold' button, i can each page that has that control on it, to actually USE the button.
Yet i also need to register message callbacks, so that I can use a MessageGrabber to send data to it, and tha'ts not assigned inside of the UserControl, that's assigned programatically when a new window comes in; but since I have no controls to reference, i can't assign.
KISS Philosophy
Wouldn't it be easier to just create the form, like i do now, and then just dock that form within a window or something? So that, in essence, it's still creating the form, but it's also a separate window?
Original Question
Okay, so i'm stumped (which isn't that big of a surprise when it comes to complex C# logic lol)! What i'm trying to do is the following:
Goal: Setup tabbed chatting for new chat application.
Completed: Open new window whenever a chat message is received, or a user requests a new chat from the roster. This is working perfectly, and opens only a window when the user doesn't already have the chat open. Nice and happy there.
Problem: I dont want windows. Well, i do want A window, but, i do not want tons of separate windows. For example, our Customer Service team may have about 10 active IM windows going at one time, i do not want them to have to have 10 windows tiled there lol. I'd rather they have a single Private IM window, and all 10 tabs docked within the window.
Logic: This is my logic here, which may be flawed, i do apologize:
OnMessage: Open new chat window if one doesn't already exist; if one exists, open it as a tab within the current chat window.
SendMessage: ^^ ditto ^^
Code Examples:
if (!Util.ChatForms.ContainsKey(msg.From.Bare))
{
RosterNode rn = rosterControl1.GetRosterItem(msg.From);
string nick = msg.From.Bare;
if (rn != null)
nick = rn.Text;
frmChat f = new frmChat(msg.From, xmpp, nick);
f.Show();
f.IncomingMessage(msg);
return;
}
Note on above: The Util. function just keeps tracks of what windows are opened inside of a hashtable, that way, when messages come in, they route to the proper window. That is added with the:
Util.ChatForms.Add(m_Jid.Bare.ToLower(), this);
Command in the frmChat() form.
Library in Use: agsxmpp from: http://www.ag-software.de/agsxmpp-sdk/download/
Problem:
How can i convert this code to open inside of tabs, instead of windows? Can someone please give me some ideas, and help with that. I just can't seem to wrap my head around that concept.

Use TabControl

What is the standard way to add controls to a TabPage at Design Time?

I am creating my first Windows Forms application, to be deployed on Windows Mobile and I am having some trouble designing a Tabbed Interface.
I had assumed that I could Create a TabControl, then Add some TabPages and then drag Controls on to each Tab Page in turn. This does not appear to be possible and most of the information I see on the web seems to suggest that the controls should be added dynamically at run-time.
Am I missing something obvious here or is this indeed correct?
If you do have to add the controls at runtime then how do people generally manage the design process. Do they create a Custom UserControl for each tab and then add that at runtime?
Design environment (C# Visual Studio 2005, .net 2.0)
Runtime environment (Windows Mobile 6.1)
Update 1
The actual steps taken within visual studio were as follows :-
Select New Project -> SmartDevice -> Windows Mobile 6 Professional -> Device Application
Added a TabControl to Form1. This automatically adds tabPage1 and tabPage2
Update 2
The solution to this is embarrassingly noobish. The TabControl puts the tabs at the bottom of the page, the first thing I was doing was resizing the tab control to a single line which was then hiding the TabPage control.

Currently i don't use Windows Mobile, but i think it works quite the same.
After adding a TabControl to your form you should take a look into the properties and search for TabPages. Here you can add and delete new TabPages to your Control and design it as you like in the designer.
To your question about using UserControls on each TabPage i would definitely say Yes. It makes easier to separate between each page and what will happen on each one.
Also at a last step i am going to move the needed code out of the Designer.cs into my own function (e.g. var tabControl = CreateTabControl() where all of my properties are set. Then i put all my UserControls into an
private IEnumerable<Type> GetAllTypes()
{
yield return typeof(MyFirstControl);
yield return typeof(MySecondControl);
}
and make an
private void CreateTabPages(TabControl tabControl, IEnumerable<Type> types)
{
foreach(var type in types)
{
var control = Activator.CreateInstance(type);
var tabPage = new TabPage();
tabPage.Controls.Add(control);
tabControl.TabPages.Add(tabPage);
}
}
this will then be called by
CreateTabPages(tabControl, GetAllTypes());
With this approach i can easily add another Tab Page with a single line of code and design it in its own scope.

I just opened vs2008 and created a tabcontrol, then I added controls inside using drag and drop in the designer and I didn't found any problem.
The way I use to do it is to create a usercontrol for each tab, But I add the usercontrol to the tab in the designer. (note that the usercontrol will not appear in the toolbox until you generate your solution).
I didn't know why your method are not working. Did you stop your application before try to add the controls?
Good Luck.