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Jason Coley
Posts: 272
Joined: 2005-05-26
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Hi there,
Is there a way to have a hide commmand to hide all addins in a particular view?
I have two seperate addins, in two dlls. They both add a right pane to contact folders. With both installed i get the selector bar at the top to select which addin to view. This is great!
But I want to be able to hide the whole pane or at least minimize it like the Todo Bar in Outlook 2007.
It doesn't seem that I can hide the whole pane, I can hide a form, but if I do this the selector bar is hidden.
The ultimate solution is as far as I can see is a hide button on the Navigation bar similar to the ones in the Outlook todo bar. Either that or somehow expose some of the navigation bar properties, like hide, show, maybe control which addin is shown at startup (it doesn't remember at present)
I like the panes and the new look, works so much better and nicer than the first version, but at present the only way to control visiblity etc is to use command bars and the panes, which kind of make it more compolicated than I think it needs to be.
Anyway, comments would be very welcome, or suggestions of what else i can try for this. I plan to have about 3 or 4 addins that use the same pane space, so a nice way to hide the whole pane would be great.
Jason |
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Posted 07 Jan, 2007 17:11:51
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Andrei Smolin
Add-in Express team
Posts: 18816
Joined: 2006-05-11
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Jason,
Imagine you have four your add-ins and several third-party add-ins that show their forms in the same region. If you hide your forms, then what about the other add-ins? Should their forms go away, too? I don't think so. In addition, if we provide functionality that hides a region, we will be obliged to add the restore method that will require adding some sort of button or menu item to the user interface. And we don't think this can be a universal and widely accepted way.
Nevertheless, you can use this approach in your add-ins: add a button (to your forms) that will find your add-ins using the COMAddins collection of the host application and send the "close-forms-in-the-region" message. Accordingly, you will have to provide a command bar button that will restore the forms.
At the moment, we plan to develop a Smart Splitter functionality: the end-user will be able to minimize/restore a region. Currently, we think this functionality will be released in February or March.
We also will try to work out a way to remember the order of displaying forms.
Thank you again for helping us make the better product. |
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Posted 08 Jan, 2007 09:55:14
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Jason Coley
Posts: 272
Joined: 2005-05-26
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Interesting comments and thank you.
I don't see a hide button in the navigation area being one that should hide a seperate addin, just one that hides the overall pane. All addins are in the pane, its just the pane is minimized.
Its really all about to me anyway, allowing the user to have more screen real estate in the Outlook Super grid when they want to, and i don't think they would want to close each addin down, just minimize the pane while they need it minimized.
thoughts?
Also can you give an example on the close-forms-in-the-region message?
Jason |
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Posted 08 Jan, 2007 13:54:01
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Andrei Smolin
Add-in Express team
Posts: 18816
Joined: 2006-05-11
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Jason,
Look like our thoughts go in the same direction. I wonder if we are relatives. Yes, we want the Smart Splitter to allow the user to minimize the region with any number of forms belonging to several add-ins (and not an add-in or add-ins). Oh, and to restore the region. Note, not hiding/showing but minimizing/restoring. Using the latter approach, we allow the user to access the MinimizeRegion/RestoreRegion functionality through appropriate familiar-looking controls of the splitter and not through any command bar controls.
Also can you give an example on the close-forms-in-the-region message?
Add a COM interface, say MyInterface, to your add-in modules. When you need to hide your forms, you run through the COMAddins collection of the host and try to cast the Object property of every collection item to the MyInterface interface. For those add-ins that implement this interface, you call the public method of the interface, say HideAllForms. |
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Posted 09 Jan, 2007 06:36:02
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Jason Coley
Posts: 272
Joined: 2005-05-26
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OK so is the MinimizeRegion and RestoreRegion possible now? |
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Posted 09 Jan, 2007 14:19:48
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Andrei Smolin
Add-in Express team
Posts: 18816
Joined: 2006-05-11
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Jason,
No, they will not be availbable till we implement them. We will define our plans more concretely after Janury, 15. At the moment, you can use the TadxOlForm.Hide and TadxOlForm.Show methods. |
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Posted 10 Jan, 2007 03:59:23
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