Outlook add-in manifests are supposed to work on PC Desktop Outlook, OWA and Outlook for Mac. That mostly seems to be the case but we noticed an issue with Outlook for Mac. Outlook for Mac does not appear to have button group labels.
Look at the Microsoft Store red briefcase "Store" button for example. In Windows Desktop Outlook this button is in the Add-ins button group as indicated by the text "Add-ins" as the label below the button. For Outlook for Mac the button group label is missing. In fact Outlook for Mac appears not to have any button group labels at all.
If you are just adding a single add-in command the associated button image can be your logo. What if however, you have two or more add-in commands in a button group with your product name as the Label? This can be confusing for the user if the product name is missing. For example what if one of your add-in commands is labelled "Tools"? Without the button group label the user might get confused. Tools for what?
How do we make this look good for Outlook for Mac? What are people doing to get around this? Is there a best practices solution?
Thanks.
Unfortunately, we have stopped support for ribbon group titles on Outlook Mac.
The best way out is to have the app name as part of the command - if X is the name of the app, have "X Tools", instead of just "Tools". We recommend that you do not rely on the group title to communicate the product name.
An example of this is Boomerang, which has its button label as "Open Boomerang" instead of just "Open".
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When I enable "Out Of Office" automatic messages in Outlook 2010, the "message bar" is filled in with a warning text. I would like to use such a feature to inform the user of my own feature being enabled.
I cannot find any reference to programmatic access to this bar. I found something about the statusbar, but it is not usable in VBA in Outlook.
I am not even sure the proper English name of this feature is "message bar"; I am referring to the same bar which in Word is used to inform user that a document is "dangerous" because coming from internet.
Is this message bar exposed in VBA for Outlook?
I tried finding other methods to inform the user, so I started studying the Ribbon: if I could make my own tab visible I could use it as a "message bar", but Ribbon is managed by Outlook differently from other Office programs, so most of examples available around are not applicable/working in Outlook.
I was able to programmatically create a tab and add a button to it, but then I can't make the tab visible.
I also tried using property "position" of the commandbar: not just msoBarTop but also msoBarBottom or msoBarPopup, but Outlook ignores my efforts.
But maybe managing the Ribbon in Outlook with VBA should be addressed in a separate question (there are some questions about it here, but I could not find useful tips for me; I have no access to VB VSTO).
The area you are referring to is used to implement Mail Tips. Although you can create custom ones through the Exchange Admin Center , they cannot be interacted with via code.
Manipulating Ribbon controls to show states or user messages is not really recommended, as the Ribbon is generally a static thing (except in case of menus, dropdowns and Galleries).
If your goal is to show a transient alert, a better approach would be to use the Windows SDK to show Windows notifications. If having your alert hosted in Outlook is of the utmost importance, then look into using Form Regions or an add-in with Task Panes to display your messaging. Or even a simple VBA MessageBox or User Form.
Also note that your usage of the CommandBar is really only applicable to Outlook 2007 and earlier - there are no more CommandBars in newer versions, just the Ribbon.
I am developing an add-in to outlook, and it has extension points on the msgComposeCommandSurface and the msgReadCommandSurface.
Are there a way to specify that my custom button group should come before a build-in group in the ribbon?
This is not supported. Your group will appear at the end of existing groups of the ribbon. There are certain limitation on how and where the ribbon controls will appear when developing add-in. To get more information I suggest you refer to the following source: How do add-in commands appear?
Here I am trying implement an email tracking system through office addin command button and I want to change the button-icon immediately when track event is completed.Please give your opinion.
We don't support runtime changes of the button icon. But it's a good idea. Please suggest this at Office Developer User Voice.
I am writing a word add-in in VB .NET (using Add-in Express, but I don't think that's relevant).
I have created shortcuts, but I only want them to take effect if the document itself is in focus, not a dialog - for example, "Find and replace" or any other.
How do I determine if a dialog has focus?
The "Selection" property of the application points to the selection in the document, even if a dialog is currently selected. I can't find any "HasFocus"-equivalent property anywhere either. I'm running out of ideas :o)
Thanks!
This workaround worked for me:
My add-in keeps a reference to the handle of the most recently activated Word window, by using the GetActiveWindow API during the WindowActivate event of the Word application. This is necessary since, up until Office 2013, the Window object does not expose a handle property.
When a shortcut is triggered, I compare that to the handle of the currently active window, using the same API. If they don't match, I simply don't proceed :o)
When using Outlook 2007 or 2010 you can bring up the Advanced Find dialog by pressing Crtl+Shift+F.
I have performed advanced queries against Outlook contact items and calendar items, but would like to show Outlook's native dialog box for users to perform more advanced searches instead of trying to recreate that dialog box within my app.
I've searched, but have been unable to find details on how to show that dialog box from within a .NET application.
Not sure why I didn't get the Tumbleweed badge for this question, but I got the answer over on the MSDN forums.
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/outlookdev/thread/fe1b7a52-18a3-47d2-a1eb-c22f5c57d454
The Advanced Find dialog is not exposed in Outlook's object model and therefore cannot be called from a .NET app.
So, I'm working on re-creating the dialog box in WPF.