I'm planning to build my first Outlook Add In. I'm familiar with Outlook VBA, but not with the new technology (javascript).
I want to create one Add In for PC/MAC/DESKTOP/ONLINE to be able to download in the store. Can this be done in one Add In?
Is this the right article to start?
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/add-ins/quickstarts/outlook-quickstart?tabs=yeomangenerator
Yes, you are on the right avenue. But I'd suggest learning basics of JavaScript/TypeScript, HTML, CSS and etc. basics of web programming first. Web add-ins are not so easy as VBA macros. Here is where you can learn about web add-ins - Office Add-ins platform overview.
Related
I create customised Office solutions for my organisation. To do this, I create Powerpoint/Excel templates which contain customisations I include by modifying the ribbon using Custom UI Editor - the buttons then call macros I wrote in VBA.
Right now, I am facing the problem that I need to keep rolling out new templates (and manually getting people to use it) whenever I want to fix bugs or update features. This is obviously not optimal.
Therefore, I wanted to build an Add-in which:
Modifies the ribbon in a similar way to Custom UI Editor
Can allow me to call VBA macros
Can be updated via the internet
However, (definitely because I'm new to this) the advice out there seems a little vague.
Is it possible to do what I am asking?
Microsoft has 3 different technologies that are all called add-ins. The one you're familiar with is the original VBA-based add-in. That technology can fulfill #2 on your list. However, there is no simple way to directly modify the Ribbon using VBA. It might be possible to update from the Internet, but that would not be an easy project to program.
The second technology is called COM. COM add-ins are most often written in C# or Visual Basic (similar to, but not identical with, VBA) in Visual Studio. COM add-ins can modify the Ribbon and can call VBA macros. Updating from the Internet would still be a more complex problem. Customize the Office Fluent ribbon by using a managed COM add-in
The third type of add-in is the JavaScript add-in technology that Microsoft is currently hyping as the next big thing. There are some UI elements they can manipulate, but not full-scale Ribbon mods. They can't run VBA macros. But they are update-able from the Internet. Understanding the Office JavaScript API
I've been struggling recently with a simple Windows Form Application that helps me automate common outlook tasks.
I know that triggering a "Display" event everytime a new email arrives is quite simple, but I'm still a noob when it comes to Visual Basic.
I must mention that all the information I've found so far deals only with VBA code and it seems that statements differ between VBA and VB.
Any ideas, suggestions or recommendations of useful websites to look at will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
The Concepts (Outlook 2013 developer reference) section provides a lot of HowTo pages with VB.NET samples.
I've been struggling recently with a simple Windows Form Application
It looks like you are trying to automate Outlook. In that case you may find the How to automate Outlook by using Visual Basic article helpful.
As an alternative way, you may consider developing an Outlook add-in. See Walkthrough: Creating Your First Application-Level Add-in for Outlook to get started quickly. See also the Outlook Solutions section in MSDN.
Background:
I have come up with an idea that will make things easier for the company I work for. They even seem excited about the idea. The idea is to make an addin for Outlook to help with a task. So after doing a bit of research (obviously, not enough). I downloaded a trial copy of VS2010 pro and created a VSTO addin.
After creating the addin, it was time to package it for a small test deployment. That's when I found out that this is a much more difficult thing to do. It seems MS does not ship Office 2010 with the runtime needed to run VSTO, so i'd have to package that as well. In a company environment, this is not something simple to do.
So, I might have to go back to the drawing board.
Meat of the question:
I've never created an addin for office before, I really want more of a "drop in" solution. I'm not sure if VBA is the right solution. It seems more of a "document" level application (or macro?). Does any one know what would be the best type of solution for this?
Outlook API is not native .NET framework. To interact it with, .NET relies on marshaling and interrop assembly thus making it much more prone to errors and unstable.
From what I've seen so far with my outlook API experience, I would stick with VBA and you should consider retrieving a third party library that exposes outlook extended MAPI if you run in to much of trouble.
NetOffice is pretty good - it is a set of managed .NET libraries that handles the COM API with Office and only needs XCopy installation.
The best part is it tracks all runtime callable wrappers ('RCWs') you create when accessing objects through COM and automatically releases them when you dispose the top-level object (the Application in most cases), so you won't get the issue of an orphaned COM 'handle' preventing you from closing Office.
Alternatively, the Office Primary Interop Assemblies should be on any computer that has the relevant version of Office installed (at least for >= Office 2007). But there are cases when it won't so you will have to cover that possibility. VSTO redistributable should already be installed on any computer with Office 2010 or 2013. For Office 2007 you will need to install it. But again, better safe than sorry so you should include it in your installer in both cases.
For details on deployment options look at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb386179.aspx
As for VBA, I don't have experience for Outlook addins so I leave that to others to explain. Other VBA Office app addins (Excel/Word/Visio/PPT at least - not sure about the others as I haven't used them) can be installed either using registry keys or through XCopying the addin to a trusted location and then telling the user to open Options/Manage addins and tick the tick box.
I highly recommend Add-in Express. They have tools that go beyond what Microsoft provides via Visual Studio.
Their features for Outlook development greatly reduce the amount of effort required to build Outlook add-ins
I was trying to run a macro that was designed in for Microsoft Office 2003; however it will not work in Office 2010. Is there a wrapper or some sort of way that I can enable the Office 2010 to read the code?
Thanks for your help and please explain in layman's terms since I really don't have extensive programming knowledge.
You probably need to install the VBA Converter Pack. Follow the link at the top of the support page to download the hotfix.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926430/
I am planning to do an add-ins project for Outlook 2007. I am pro developer in C#, WPF.
Please suggest books or sites for me to learn Outlook programming with C#. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks.
Professional Outlook 2007 Programming ISBN:9780470049945
Programming Applications for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 ISBN:9780735622494
I am NOT an employee of this company - but I really really like Add-In Express (http://www.add-in-express.com/).
It basically lets you write WinForms style code, embed your WinForms components, deploy and update using ClickOnce (HUGE feature), supports multiple versions of Office products, no VSTO dependency or deployment necessary, easy designer, standard automation model.
To answer your question, reading their tutorials and documentation was sufficient to get started doing extensive Office/Excel/Outlook dev.
Like anything, it has its bugs, but I really like it.