Preview the Next Version of Visual Studio Tools for Office

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1. Commentary - Preview the Next Version of Visual Studio Tools for Office

2. Peer to Peer - Outlook Tip: Why Doesn't the Document_Close Event Handler Run? - Featured Forum Thread: Resource - Free/Busy Not Displaying

3. New and Improved - Take Steps to a Secure Messaging Infrastructure

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==== 1. Commentary: Preview the Next Version of Visual Studio Tools for Office ==== by Sue Mosher, News Editor, exadmin@turtleflock.com

Last week, Microsoft announced that its 2007 Microsoft Office System, including Office Outlook 2007, will become available to corporate customers in October of this year through the volume-licensing program. Office 2007 will start appearing on retail shelves and on new PCs in January 2007, concurrent with the release of the new Windows Vista OS.

The other important Outlook 2007-related announcement last week came at the second annual Office Developers Conference, held at Microsoft headquarters. Microsoft announced the immediate availability of a Community Technology Preview (CTP) version of Visual Studio Tools for Office v3, compatible with the Beta 1 Technical Refresh release of Office 2007, which is currently in circulation to Microsoft testers. (A public beta is planned for later this year.)

Visual Studio Tools for Office v3 CTP is important because, although the original release version of Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office offered a way to avoid some of the most problematic aspects of Outlook add-in creation, it could build Outlook add-ins only for Outlook 2003. Not only can the CTP version create Outlook 2007 add-ins, but it can also create managed code add-ins based on the Microsoft .NET Framework for Microsoft Office Word, Office Excel, and other programs in the Office 2007 suite. Ultimately, this development tool will have components to help programmers design their UIs to take advantage of key new features in Office 2007, including the "ribbon" (which replaces menus and toolbars), custom task panes, and Outlook custom form regions. Microsoft also promised that Visual Studio Tools for Office v3 add-ins will be easier to deploy than add-ins built with Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office.

The new custom form regions feature in Outlook 2007 is worth a look, not just by independent software vendors (ISVs) who want to overlay their functionality onto Outlook items, but also by inhouse corporate developers frustrated by the limitations in Outlook forms. Experienced Outlook forms developers know all about the lack of preview for custom forms, the inability to customize any built-in page that has a date/time picker on it, and continuing forms cache problems. Custom form regions offer the opportunity to work around these problems and add new functionality as well.

Custom form regions come in three flavors: adjacent, separate, and replacement. An adjacent region appears at the bottom of the main page of a form, either in the open item or in the reading pane, so it's an excellent choice if you want to show a small amount of information that the user would ordinarily have to open the item or switch to another form page to see. A separate region is a separate page that Outlook displays in addition to the usual form pages. Both adjacent and separate regions can work with Outlook's built-in default forms or with custom forms. A replacement region can substitute for either the first page of a custom form or all the pages of a custom form. In the latter case, only custom form region pages would show, not any of the regular pages of the custom form. Note that replacement regions work only with published custom forms, not with Outlook's default forms.

To make the form regions feature viable, Microsoft includes with Outlook 2007 several new Outlook-specific controls that work only on form regions, including specialized controls such as a date/time picker, the "infobar" that displays information about actions you've taken on a message, and controls for contact pictures and electronic business cards. Custom form regions don't have code behind them, but their controls can fire events in Outlook add-ins, so that a developer could, for example, build an application that knows when the user has put the focus on a particular control and provide instructions on the form surface for working with that control.

What will be interesting to see is how Microsoft distinguishes custom form regions from custom task panes, which are available as UI elements in both folder and item windows in Outlook. Both offer the possibility of building richer interaction with individual Outlook items. Does Outlook need two such UI customization areas? Or will custom form regions evolve in their own direction unique to Outlook, leaving custom task panes as the more generic UI customization area, common to all Office applications? And what shape will the promised Visual Studio Tools for Office "designer" for custom form regions take? It wouldn't be hard to improve Outlook's form designer, which hasn't changed at all since Outlook 97.

Microsoft Pre-Release Software Visual Studio Tools For Office "v3" - March Community Technology Preview (CTP) http://list.windowsitpro.com/t?ctl=25A01:610453

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==== 2. Peer to Peer ====

Outlook Tip: Why Doesn't the Document_Close Event Handler Run? by Sue Mosher, exadmin@turtleflock.com Q: A Word document saved directly in a public folder or attached to a post in a folder doesn't run its Document_Close procedure when the save occurs. How can I make that macro work?

Find the answer (and links to more great tips): http://list.windowsitpro.com/t?ctl=25A04:610453

Featured Forum Thread: Resource - Free/Busy Not Displaying A forum reader has several conference room resources that are set to display 12 months of Free/Busy information but that are only showing 2 months. Read more about the problem and offer your advice at the following URL: http://list.windowsitpro.com/t?ctl=25A02:610453

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==== 3. New and Improved ==== by Blake Eno, products@windowsitpro.com

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