Customize Outlook 2007 forms in C#, VB.NET. Custom
regions for Outlook Navigation Pane & To-Do Bar

More Outlook versions, more regions and more features

We are happy to announce that our Office 2007 playgame is completed and a new generation of Add-in Express Extensions for Outlook is available right now. Below you can find a brief description of the most important features and improvements offered by the Add-in Express Extensions 2007 for Microsoft Outlook.

• New vision of Outlook UI customization
• New design - embed several forms into one region
• New experience - add regions to Outlook Navigation Pane and To-Do Bar
• New architecture - create multiple regions for one window
• New extensibility - share regions between your add-ins
• New core - complete control over your Outlook forms and regions

New vision of Outlook UI customization

The Add-in Express Extensions for Microsoft Outlook allows you to customize Outlook GUI using the Advanced Outlook Regions. You can place any custom form onto Outlook windows and add any control types to the form. With Add-in Express Advanced Outlook Regions you can derive benefits from the new possibilities of Outlook 2007 in full measure, and give a sleeker and professional design to the user interface of your Outlook plug-ins. Please note, all features described below are compatible with Outlook 2000, 2002, 2003 and Outlook 2007.

New design - you can embed several forms into one Outlook region

In version 2007, we completely redesigned Advanced Outlook Regions' GUI and architecture. Now you can embed several forms into one advanced Outlook region.

Look at the pictures above. Now Advanced Outlook Regions have a special header that shows the caption of the currently selected form (2), includes a list of the embedded forms (3) and creates two buttons (1 - Backward and Forward) for navigating between the forms embedded into the region. This feature is absolutely transparent for you. As earlier, you just select a layout for your form and Add-in Express embeds your form into the selected region. You needn't care about other embedded forms, Add-in Express controls them itself.

New experience - add regions to Outlook Navigation Pane and To-Do Bar

In addition to view and form regions provided by the previous version of the Extensions, version 2007 empowers you to create regions for the Outlook Navigation Pane (on Outlook 2000+) and for the To-Do Bar (on Outlook 2007).

In general, the Add-in Express Extensions 2007 supports six Advanced Regions for the Outlook Explorer windows - four Outlook view regions, the Navigation Pane region and the To-Do Bar region  (see the picture below).

1 - 4. Right, left, bottom and top view regions 
5. Navigation Pane region
6. To-Do Bar region

For the Outlook Inspector window,  the Add-in Express Extensions 2007 supports four form regions (see the picture below).

1 - 4. Right, left, bottom and top form regions

New window architecture - create several regions for one window

The Add-in Express Extensions 2007 empowers you to create multiple regions for one Outlook window, Explorer and Inspector (see the picture below).

New extensibility - your add-ins share regions

With version 2007 multiple forms from multiple add-ins can share one region as well as multiple regions from multiple add-ins can share one Outlook window. Don't worry, all this is absolutely transparent for you.

New core - you can completely control your forms

Finally, you can completely control your forms, move them between regions, hide, show, close them, and add any controls to your custom form. Now Advanced Outlook Regions are completely controlled by a developer, and it is the main difference between Add-in Express regions and Outlook 2007 form regions.

Note

The Add-in Express Extensions for Microsoft Outlook is included in all Add-in Express packages. With this extension you can customize the Outlook Explorer and Inspector windows with Advanced Outlook Regions and embed your forms into the Outlook GUI. The Advanced Outlook Regions are similar to the Outlook 2007 form regions, but in contrast to Outlook 2007 regions, the Advanced Outlook Regions work on all Outlook versions supported by Add-in Express and provide a more flexible way to customize the Outlook GUI than the Outlook 2007 form regions do.