Delphi components for
COM addin, smart tag, RTD server

Add-in Express™
for Microsoft® Office and Delphi® VCL

Add-in Express for Delphi VCL components

To make building add-ins, plugins, smart tags and RTD servers on Delphi more straightforward and fast Add-in Express for Office and VCL adds several technology-specific components that implement properties, methods and events of the corresponding Office objects and COM interfaces. These components are command bars and menus, menu items and buttons (command bar buttons), edit and combo boxes (command bar combo boxes), smart tags, smart tag actions, RTD servers and RTD topics, Office ribbons and application menus, etc. All Add-in Express components are grouped into three modules - adxAddIn, adxSmartTag, adxRTDServ.

Delphi components for COM Add-ins

Module: adxAddIn.pas

MS Office Object

Add-in Express Component

Technology-specific objects and interfaces

COM Add-in Module

  • IDTExtensibility2
  • IRibbonExtensibility

COM Add-in Module

It is the main module of any Microsoft Office add-in projects. The add-in module centralizes the add-in's logic and provides special components and to create custom Office ribbons, menus, command bars / toolbars and to access the host application's objects and events.

Delphi components for creating an Office COM Add-in

Components and classes

  • Host application events

Event Components

Some Office application events are important for Delphi and Office developers. In order to organize a pool of these events and correctly handle them, all these events are wrapped by special Delphi components that group events by Office application.

Outlook Events component

  • Application-level keyboard shortcuts

Keyboard Shortcut component

The component allows you to create a new or override an existing application-level keyboard shortcut for all applications from all Office versions, from 2000 to 2021/365

Keyboard Shortcut component

  • ID-based built-in Office toolbar controls associated with standard commands of your host applications

Built-in Control Connector component

The component allows you to intercept actions of any ID-based built-in controls of your host application. For example, you can handle the Click event of the Send button in Outlook.

Builin Control Connector component

Visual components

Office 2000 - 2007 Menus and Toolbars

  • Application- and document-level menu bars and command bars

Command Bar component

Add-in Express includes a unified CommandCar component that you can use to create your custom Office toolbar or modify any existing (built-in) command bar including menu bars and pop-up menus. The component adds, stores and manages all controls that have been added to the command bar with the Controls collection.

Command Bar component

Controls Collection Editor

Populating the command bar with command bar controls

  • Outlook-specific toolbars

Outlook Explorer and Inspector Command Bar components

For Outlook developers, Add-in Express offers two Outlook toolbar components, for the Explorer and Inspector windows.

The first adds a new toolbar / command bar or modifies the existing ones on the Outlook Explorer windows, the latter customizes toolbars on the Inspector window.

Outlook Explorer CommandBar component Outlook Inspector CommandBar component

  • Office main menu

Main Menu component

Add-in Express for Office and Delphi VCL provides a component for customizing CommandBar based main menus in pre-ribbon Office applications. You use it to create custom menu items and add your items well as built-in ones to any existing Microsoft Office main menu. You can managing the custom controls you added to the main menu of Microsoft Office applications using the Controls collection.

The first adds a new toolbar / command bar or modifies the existing ones on the Outlook Explorer windows, the latter customizes toolbars on the Inspector window.

Office Main Menu component

Visual Designer for the Office Main Menu component

Visual Designer for the Office Main Menu component

  • Outlook-specific main menus

Outlook Explorer and Inspector Main Menu components

To address Outlook menu bar specificities, Add-in Express for Office and Delphi VCL provides two Outlook main menu components: for the Explorer and Inspector windows. The first adds a custom menu item or modifies existing ones in the main menu of the Outlook Explorer windows, the latter customizes main menus on the Inspector window.

Outlook Explorer Main Menu component Outlook Inspector Main Menu component

  • Office context menus

Context Menu component

This is a special component for customizing a context menu in Office 2000 - 2007. Note that in these Office versions, context menus are CommandBar based and you need to use the Ribbon context menu component to customize context menus in Office 2010 - 2021. To be consistent with the design pattern of all CommandBar-based components, the Context Menu component provides the Controls collection.

Context Menu component

Visual Designer for the Office Context Menu component

Visual Designer for the Office Context Menu component

  • Toolbar (command bar) buttons
  • Menu items
  • Pop-up menu items
  • Edit boxes
  • Combo boxes
  • Dropdown lists
  • Pop-up menus
  • Built-in command bar controls
  • Advanced command bar controls

Command Bar Control components

In the Controls collection of the command bar components, you can use all toolbar controls provided by the Office object model, including CommandBarButton (represents menu items or buttons on a command bar), CommandBarComboBox (edit and combo boxes, dropdown lists), CommandBarPopup (represents sub-menus or pop-up menus on a toolbar). In addition, you can place on your toolbars any ID-based built-in controls.

Command Bar Control component

Office Ribbon UI

  • Ribbon Tab
  • Office Menu
  • Quick Access Toolbar
  • BackstageView
  • Ribbon Context Menus

Ribbon components

To make the support of the Ribbon UI easier, Add-in Express offers four Delphi components that empower you to customize Ribbon tabs, the Office Menu and Quick Access Toolbar.

Ribbon Tab component Quick Access Toolbar component Office Menu component Backstage View component Context Menu component

Visual designer for Ribbon tabs

Ribbon Tab visual designer

Delphi components for Smart Tags

Module: adxSmartTag.pas

MS Office Object

Add-in Express Component

Technology-specific objects and interfaces

Smart Tag Module

  • ISmartTagRecognizer
  • ISmartTagRecognizer2

Smart Tag Module

It is the main module of any smart tag projects on Delphi that shares one recognizer for smart tag components, centralizes all smart tags and their actions, provides access to host application objects.

Visual designer

Smart Tag Module designer

Smart Tag Actions

  • ISmartTagAction
  • ISmartTagAction2

Smart Tag Action component

The Smart Tag Action component provides methods, properties and events to customize any smart tag that is associated with a recognizable word list or a dynamic recognizer. It contains the Actions collection that helps organize smart tag actions and handle them.

Smart Tag component

Delphi components for Excel RTD Servers

Module: adxRTDServ.pas

MS Office Object

Add-in Express Component

Technology-specific objects and interfaces

RTD Server Module

  • IRTDServer

RTD Server Module

It is the main module of any Excel Real-Time Data Server projects that shares one IRTDServer for RTD topic components, centralizes all topics, provides access to host application objects.

Visual designer

RTD Server Module designer

RTD Topics

  • RTD Topics

RTD Server Topic component

The RTD Server Topic component provides methods, properties and events to customize any RTD topic's actions that are associated with an item of the RTD function and is handled by the published event.

RTD Server Topic component