I'm working on outlook 2007 VSTO Addin.I have added a Ribbon with a button. I am trying to raise an event on button click.On NewInspector event of Application.Inspectors collection I should be able to hook on to this ribbon event in the Presenter.
The questions is how to get hold of Ribbon of Inspector opened. I tried Globals.Ribbons.MyRibbon to do so.Strangely it works only for the first inspector. I also tried Globals.Ribbons[inspector].MyRibbon.
Looks like when NewInspector is created the Ribbons Collection has 0 Items and Ribbon load happen only after NewInspector event handler is executed.
Is there any event to know when a ribbon loads OR Is there any alternative way ,where i can keep the business logic in Presenter instead of having it in ribbon view.
The answer is with much effort..
As far as I can tell the ribbon is not exposed through vsto or com interop, it is also stateless, so the ribbon will be loaded once no matter how many inspectors are shown.
It took me a long time to gracefully solve this issue, and it is pretty complex code. I also should mention that I chose to tackle the problem using ribbon XML rather than the designer, I found the designer too restrictive.
The guts of it is you have to create a custom IRibbonExtensibility implementation, then rewrite the callbacks in the ribbon XML, so they will callback to methods on your IRibbonExtensibility impl.
You then have to handle the loaded event, and the new inspector event so you can relate the two.
There is actually a lot more to it and you can check out my code in the VSTO contrib project.
http://vstocontrib.codeplex.com/SourceControl/changeset/view/b35f26fdca15#src%2fOutlook.Utility%2fRibbonFactory%2fRibbonFactory.cs
If you are building a MVP framework for VSTO drop me an line as I would be interested to see what you are doing.
Related
we are using the Application.DocumentChange event so that when a document is loaded, it can check the name of the document, and then if it is named in a certain way show or hide buttons on the ribbon.
If I use the code below it works really well, it shows or hides the buttons correctly.
But when I run the addin in debug mode from Visual Studio, when the document is closing it gives this message.
System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException: 'This command is not available because no document is open.'
As you can see I tried to put in an if statement to stop it running the code but it didnt work.
If I just install my addin, Word does not seem to crash or have any problems, maybe I shouldnt worry about it?
Thanks
Private Sub Application_DocumentChange() Handles Application.DocumentChange
If Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.Documents.Count > 0 Then
If Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.ActiveDocument.BuiltInDocumentProperties("Title").Value = "Document Name Here" Then
Globals.Ribbons.VisualfilesTab.AttachEvidence.Visible = True
Else
Globals.Ribbons.VisualfilesTab.GetAuthorisation.Visible = True
End If
End If
End Sub
Consider switching your custom UI to the ribbon XML over the designer-generated custom ribbon UI. You can export your existing custom UI to the ribbon XML markup. See How to: Export a ribbon from the Ribbon Designer to Ribbon XML for more information.
You can customize the Ribbon UI by using callback procedures in COM add-ins. For each of the callbacks that the add-in implements, the responses are cached.
For example, if an add-in writer implements the getVisible callback procedure for a button, the function is called once, the state is loaded, and then if the visibility state needs to be updated, the cached state is used instead of recalling the procedure. This process remains in place until the add-in signals that the cached values are invalid by using the Invalidate or IRibbonUI.InvalidateControl method, at which time, the callback procedure is again called and the return response is cached. The add-in can then force an immediate update of the UI by calling the Refresh method.
Read more about the the Fluent UI (aka Ribbon UI) in the following articles:
Customizing the 2007 Office Fluent Ribbon for Developers (Part 1 of 3)
Customizing the 2007 Office Fluent Ribbon for Developers (Part 2 of 3)
Customizing the 2007 Office Fluent Ribbon for Developers (Part 3 of 3)
I am building an Outlook Add-In in Visual Basic and I have a togglebutton in the ribbon that controls whether a setting is on or off. This settings is saved and retrieved using "GetSettings" and "SaveSetting" which saves information to the Windows Registry (to my understanding). I want the togglebutton the correspond to changes made to that setting as it can be changed in other places than just the togglebutton. My problem would be solved if I could access the value of the togglebutton and setting it manually but as I have understood it: I cannot access it as I am building my ribbon in XML. I have not been able to find a solution to this, can anyone help?
Side note: If I add my togglebutton to the taskbar in Outlook and from there toggle the settings, the togglebutton in the ribbon doesn't change to "pressed" mode. Perhaps this is something that can be fixed with any provided solution from anyone :)
You need to use IRibbonUI.Invalidate or for a single control you may use the IRibbonUI.InvalidateControl method to get your ribbon callbacks invoked for updating the cached values according to the state loaded from settings.
For example, if an add-in implements the getPressed callback procedure for a toggle button, the function is called once, the state loads, and then if the state needs to be updated, the cached state is used instead of recalling the procedure. This process remains in place until the add-in signals that the cached values are invalid by using the Invalidate method, at which time, the callback procedure is again called and the return response is cached. The add-in can then force an immediate update of the UI by calling the Refresh method (VSTO).
You can read more about the Fluent UI (aka Ribbon UI) in the following articles:
Customizing the 2007 Office Fluent Ribbon for Developers (Part 1 of 3)
Customizing the 2007 Office Fluent Ribbon for Developers (Part 2 of 3)
Customizing the 2007 Office Fluent Ribbon for Developers (Part 3 of 3)
Do not rely on the button to store the state for you - whenever it changes, it is your responsibility to refresh the Ribbon (by calling IRibbonUI.Invalidate), which will cause Outlook to invoke your callback on the toggle button to determine its state. You just need to store the appropriate state in your code.
I'm trying to understand some of the behaviors I'm experiencing in my custom outlook VSTO ribbon and the main difficulties I'm facing are tied to what seems to be a single instance of the ribbon being shared among concurrently open inspector windows (my custom ribbon is displayed for ribbon type "Microsoft.Outlook.Mail.Compose"). Is there indeed a single instance of the ribbon being shared among potentially multiple instances of inspect windows? If so, how do you handle concurrent different states in the different inspector windows?
What you do is create the one custom Ribbon and from each view you handle the items in the Ribbon that you need. Here is a question that somewhat relates to your question:
https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/57dc20bb-9d29-4d3e-84d2-c64de0af0244/iribbonextensibilitygetcustomui?forum=vsto
In your case you want to maintain state, that is using the same paradigm. Whenever you get focus on the composing mail you make sure the state of the Ribbon matches the state of the composing mail.
By doing so the one time loading of the Ribbon XML is no longer an issue as you have all items in one Ribbon and are able to manipulate the state for each of the composed mails.
I'm using VSTO with VB.NET for Excel 2013. I'm developing an application-level add-in, but I can't make two different workbooks store different "ribbon state". For example, when I want to enable a button, I use the following code:
Globals.Ribbons.Ribbon1.myButton.Enable = False
This makes the element "myButton" to be disabled on each opened workbook, but I want to make it disabled only for one workbook.
The way I'm doing now is to handle the event WorkbookActivate, to change the ribbon state. The problem is: this way, the user sees an invalid state at other workbooks that are not on the top.
There is some better workaround? There isn't a way to manage the ribbon instances (and not only the global element as I am doing)?
Thanks
There is some better workaround? There isn't a way to manage the ribbon instances (and not only the global element as I am doing)?
You need to use callbacks instead. Try to use the getEnabled callback instead.
Moreover, when required you can use the IRibbonUI interface methods to force Office applications to update the UI controls. The Invalidate method invalidates the cached values for all of the controls of the Ribbon user interface. See Overview of the IRibbonUI Object .
You can read more about the Ribbon UI (aka Fluent UI) in the following series of articles in MSDN:
Customizing the 2007 Office Fluent Ribbon for Developers (Part 1 of 3)
Customizing the 2007 Office Fluent Ribbon for Developers (Part 2 of 3)
Customizing the 2007 Office Fluent Ribbon for Developers (Part 3 of 3)
I have an a custom Excel Workbook using C# and VSTO.
Is there anyway for a worksheet to reference the ribbon and subscribe to events, or manipulate controls in the ribbon?
I haven't been able to find the syntax in Globals.Ribbons that will give me a handle to the ribbon.
I've been working on this same problem. So far, no luck. I'll be watching this thread! The ribbon XML API seems to be how Office abstracts the ribbon and keeps you from having any direct access.