Does anybody know if it is possible (and in that case how) to navigate programmatically in an Office 2010 addin?
The idea is to create a settings button on a ribbon tab, that when clicked, will direct the user to the settings of the add-in that would be located in the backstage view. Is there a way to programmatically change the active view being displayed to the user or something like that?
Thank you!!
As a developer putting on the user spectacles, I find your approach not convincing. If I click on a settings button, I expect a well-designed dialog, not to be thrown into backstage view. On the other hand - as a developr I'm much more at ease with a well-designed Windows Form than with the controls Microsoft provides for the backstage user interface; I guess you'll find there more limitations then you like.
As far as I understand your question, you want to have two different entry points to your settings dialogue - one from a button in the ribbon, and another from a point in the backstage view. Why not combining and showing from both positions the same form? Also Microsoft provides you with additional dialogues, if you click on controls in the backstage view.
Technically:
If you want to start the action of a ribbon control, you can use the "ExecuteMSO" command of the application.commmandbar object, e.g. in Word you may use
Application.CommandBars.ExecuteMso "ApplicationOptionsDialog"
to open this dialogue. However, I've done a limited test to call a custom button in backstage view, and it failed. Sol I guess that you can use ExecuteMSO only for built-in commands.
Related
I'm currently working on an office VSTO add-in, and one the requirements for the add-in is that it should place a custom button on the starting tab of the backstage. The overall goal is to make a user see that custom button as soon as he opens an office application.
The challenging part is that this should work for all versions of Office starting in Office 2016, and the starting tab the user sees when he opens an app changes from between Office versions.
So far, I've been trying to use the productReleaseId to identify the starting tab and load a custom Backstage UI accordingly. However, I haven't had much success with that approach as it seems that even product with the same productReleaseId might have different starting backstage tabs.
Any idea on how I can make a custom button appear on the starting tab independently of the office version used?
I want to have an explorer like column (something like list of emails in inbox) that comes with Outlook. In this column I want to populate list of data, where I could drop any email from the my inbox list.
How should I proceed to achieve this, any hints OR links where I could move forward as I am new to Visual Studio development. I went through couple of tutorials where I can design a form (with an icon coming at the tool bar and it opens a different window on click), but I am wondering if it is possible to have a form visible within the same explorer window (on the right hand side ) with a flexibility to show OR hide it.
The reason I want it on the same window is because I want to achieve drag and drop functionality for my emails in inbox to my custom list data in my new column. e.g. associating email X and Y to process Z in column C.
Thanks
You need to develop an Outlook add-in with an adjacent form. Unfortunately the Outlook extensibility model doesn't provide anything for that out of the box, so you need to use Windows API functions or use third-party software to get the form shown in the Explorer window. You can read more about the adjacent forms on the Creating Adjacent Windows In Outlook page where you can also find the sample code. Or may consider using Advanced Outlook view and form regions as an alternative.
FYI Command bars were deprecated and are not used any longer. The Fluent UI is used instead.
I'm programming an application in WPF using the Ribbon menu, part of the requirements for the application is that I need a commands tab, but this tab should be visible at all times and depending on the active document I would enable/disable the appropriate commands.
My question is, does anyone know a way to split the ribbon menu so that the commands tab is always visible on the right side of the menu?
I'm sure there's an easy answer for this, I just haven't found it yet.
Thanks & Regards!
It's not within the functionality of the ribbon. Why not build a grid with 2 columns, and have the ribbon in the left pane and the custom control on the right? Then you can just style the custom control to match the ribbon.
You can get the source code for the ribbon from CodePlex so you would be able to get the exact style.
It might not be what you wanted to hear, but I think it would be ideal.
I've got a minimal VSTO Addin for Outlook 2010 with a ribbon. My only goal is to display a ribbon (created via designer) with no functionality. From what little I can tell from MSDN ribbons should just automatically be displayed by default, perhaps with tweaking ControlIdType/CustomId properties for tabs.
Alas, tweaking these properties does nothing -- Outlook loads and displays no tab. A simple message box displayed in the ribbon loader reveals it never is triggered. Additionally, I haven't seen any information resources (tutorials, walkthroughs, overviews, etc..) that say anything about needing to manually tell Outlook to display tabs.
How do I get the tabs displayed?
Is there a good resource other than MSDN that's good for VSTO newbies?
To get your ribbon displayed, on the base ribbon in your code change the RibbonType property to be Microsoft.Outlook.Explorer.
What fixed it for me (without starting a new project), in the Ribbon1.vb ribbon design, I clicked on the the Ribbon1 name above the ribbons 'File' button, in the properties pane, clicked on tabs (collection), under the heading 'Design' I changed the name (from Tab1) to something else.
Clicked ok, tested by clicking F5 and it worked. Hope this helps someone else.
Our WPF application in the current design opens new windows for list screen.We don't have restrictions on the number of windows you open etc.We are using a ribbon control and well it has tab support.Which is better a new window or a tab? (With windows 7 having a better group of window management etc) Should I go in for tab or leave it as window. I can't make the detail screen tab since well the user click of a item in the grid to select and edit.Any valid suggestions? Thanks in advance.
Tabs in a Ribbon shouldn't change the view. The Ribbon is an enhanced toolbar, not a view changer.
If your using the MS Ribbon via OfficeUI, then there is a stipulation in the design guidelines that the view should never change the appearance of the ribbon (apart from loading context tabs) and that they ribbon should never wholesale change the view.
In regards to your question, do you mean that you have list/grid and you want a view to be able to change the data in the row. Eg. they double click a row, a view appears that gives them the ability to edit that row?
The right way is to ask your users what they like more. If you can't ask users, ask yourself - what you find more convenient - to open\close windows or switch between tabs. I wouldn't rely on win7 task bar as it's grouping behavior can be disabled or users may use another OS. Also I would suggest to check Microsoft guidelines for using ribbon.
Do you need to see more than one pane's content at once? Windows allow this, but tabs do not.
Tabs make management of the various windows easier at the expense of some flexibility.
Are your users likely to be running on multiple windows?
It is really hard to give a confident answer to you on this one without knowing more about your application and your user's requirements.
Windows 7 displays multiple previews on grouped windows of the application, however in case of tab, like IE, you will have to write quite a good custom code to show your tabs in preview of Windows 7 taskbar, which in case of Multiple Windows, it will be done automatically.
Not only that, Windows 7 also lets you put seven toolbar buttons on the preview windows, very few people knows about it because no application currently does it.
For tabs you will need to do extra programming to support multi window preview.
So its better to stay with multi window solution for now.
However in case of IE, if you try to use Windows 7 taskbar, the tabs dont align themselves in correct order of what is displayed in preview, it could be bug, but yes there might be certain limitations because when user chooses the tab to preview you will not be able to show them preview unless you make it active and thats why its little bad.
I recommend playing with Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome if you want to see tabs at their finest.
Notice that tabs can be teared out into a separate window and windows can be docked as tabs.