‘Add-in Express for Office and .net’ category archive
Customizing Outlook main menu, context menus and Backstage view
Ty Anderson | May 13th, 2013
Often, the focus of an Outlook add-in centers around a custom ribbon or form region. I think this makes sense. They are sexy, upfront, and what everyone wants to see. But they are not enough. A good Outlook solution should provide other user interface customizations that allow the user to execute your solution's logic. These other methods are, arguably, the less-sexy, more utilitarian UI components. I am referring of course to the main menu, context menus, and the backstage.... Read the rest of this entry →
Video: Develop Office 2013 add-ins with Visual Studio 2012 Express
Ty Anderson | April 30th, 2013
In this video, I show how to create an add-in for Microsoft Office 2013 Outlook, Excel and Word and add a custom ribbon using Add-in Express for Office and .net with Visual Studio Express 2012. Enjoy!... Read the rest of this entry →
The Outlook UI: Explorer and Inspector Windows. What is customizable?
Pieter van der Westhuizen | April 29th, 2013
It can take some time to familiarize yourself and understand the various different components of the Outlook UI. Outlook is made up of windows, panes and forms. The two types of Outlook windows are Explorer and Inspector windows... Read the rest of this entry →
Outlook forms: How to create a custom Outlook form using VBA
Ty Anderson | April 24th, 2013
Because it is composed of different windows, panes, and form regions, the Outlook UI presents a complex UI model to the developer. Despite these options, a common customization request is for custom forms to display the various Outlook items. Today, we'll take a look at Outlook forms and how you can customize them... Read the rest of this entry →
Outlook views: How to create a custom view for calendar, task, mail items
Pieter van der Westhuizen | April 18th, 2013
Outlook views allow you to group, sort and view all the different types of Outlook data within the View panel of the Outlook Explorer window. Outlook comes with a few built-in views for each Outlook item type (mail, task, calendar, etc.) which can be accessed via the View tab... Read the rest of this entry →
Outlook 2013 add-in development for beginners: Outlook Application & base objects
Ty Anderson | April 17th, 2013
Working with a new framework takes time as you familiarize yourself with its architecture and best practices. You have to spend time discovering objects, learning what they do, and when it is best to utilize them. For Outlook add-in development (and Microsoft Office development in general), this task can take months due to the number of objects involved... Read the rest of this entry →
Create Office add-ins with Visual Studio 2012 Express
Dmitry Kostochko | April 9th, 2013
Today I am going to break our long-time tradition of announcing major version releases only with the announcement of the new minor update of Add-in Express for Office and .net. "What is special about this build?" you may ask me. Well, I have the answer. Apart from minor improvements and bug fixes the new build (7.2.4055) adds support for Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop... Read the rest of this entry →
Excel 2013 add-ins in Visual Studio 2012: Getting started for VSTO developers
Pieter van der Westhuizen | April 8th, 2013
In this article we'll have a look at how you, as a VSTO developer, can get started developing add-ins for Excel using Add-in Express and Visual Studio 2012.... Read the rest of this entry →
Outlook Object Model: 4 things developers might not know
Ty Anderson | April 5th, 2013
Today, I will cover 4 topics of Outlook development tasks that are not commonly known or mainstream. You can argue about how well known each task is but you will lose. These tasks are not commonly known because you don't always need them. They are beyond the basics. But, if you master them, you can look upon other Outlook developer with a snooty little smirk... Read the rest of this entry →
Enterprise development of Office solutions with Add-in Express
Ty Anderson | March 29th, 2013
Microsoft Office based solutions take various forms and sizes. What began with the ability to write (and record) scripts to automate Office documents on a user's desktop has evolved to the ability to create full-fledged extensions. These extensions often work across multiple apps in the Office suite and expand beyond a single user's desktop.... Read the rest of this entry →
Outlook 2013 and Visual Studio 2012: Getting started for VSTO developers
Pieter van der Westhuizen | March 28th, 2013
Today we'll focus on how developers, coming from a Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) background, can get started developing add-ins for Outlook 2013 using Add-in Express and Visual Studio 2012 (C#, VB.NET or C++.NET).... Read the rest of this entry →
Range Selection in Excel add-ins – other good manners for developers
Eugene Starostin | March 22nd, 2013
In my yesterday's article I started to muse on Excel's Range Selection and what can be considered good practices for Excel add-in developers. Well, there are some other good manners for the Range Selection. And if you have a closer look at the user interface of Microsoft Excel itself and some popular Excel add-ins, you will find out pretty convenient behavior of the Range Selection functionality like follows below... Read the rest of this entry →
Range Selection in Excel add-ins – good manners for developers
Eugene Starostin | March 21st, 2013
Having been fully absorbed in developing our frameworks for a while, I lost any connection with the other part of our business - ablebits.com. Doh, I shouldn't have allowed this to happen. I clearly realized that on last Saturday evening when, to the wailing of snow storm Xavier raging across this country, I installed the latest version of the Excel Ultimate Suite on my laptop... Read the rest of this entry →
Office 2013 and Visual Studio 2012: Getting started for VSTO developers
Pieter van der Westhuizen | March 18th, 2013
So you've been using Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) for some time now and luckily you've discovered a better and easier way to develop Office add-ins, namely Add-in Express. Ready to start a new happier life of creating awesome Office Outlook extensions you excitedly fire up Visual Studio and hit File, New Project... Read the rest of this entry →
Excel 2013 single document interface (SDI): How to rebuild your task panes to support it
Pieter van der Westhuizen | February 28th, 2013
If you're an avid user of Excel, you would've noticed that Excel 2013 has moved from being a Multi document interface (MDI) application to being a Single document interface (SDI) application... Read the rest of this entry →
What’s new in Office 2013: Manipulating Excel 2013 Timeline
Ty Anderson | February 12th, 2013
Now that Microsoft Office 2013 is available, it's time to start digging through the "What's New for Office Developers" topics. I'm not sure where these topics will take us because, with each release of Office, Microsoft touts the various new features and objects available to developers... Read the rest of this entry →