1. Using the Actions Pane, Host Controls, and Smart Tags
Donald Drake Development Manager Visual Studio Tools for Office

2. Agenda Actions Pane Host Controls Dynamic Controls Smart Tags Overview
Managing Control Layout
Host Controls
Excel Host Controls
Word Host Controls
Dynamic Controls
Smart Tags

3. Actions Pane Overview
Enables contextual UI complementary to the document
Flexible way of designing custom UI
Addresses UI layout challenges
Plugs naturally into Office UI
Acts like a toolbar: floating or docked

4. Actions Pane Technology Overview
Smart Document SDK
Actions Panes (VSTO)
Requires ISmartDocument interface implementation
Not required. VSTO takes care of this implementation for you
Requires XML expansion packs
Not required. VSTO takes care of this for you
Requires XML-based document
Optional. You can create a solution that is not based on XML
Supports ActiveX controls
Supports Windows Forms controls

5. Adding an Actions Pane
Actions pane becomes visible when you add a control to it
Use Windows Forms controls, custom User controls or Actions Pane controls
Actions Pane control gives a nice design-time experience
Globals.ThisWorkbook.ActionsPane.Controls.Add (New DateTimePicker)

6. Create a Simple Actions Pane

7. Managing Layout Add multiple controls to the actions pane
Change the stack order of controls on the actions pane when the user changes the orientation of the actions pane
Programmatically change the orientation of the actions pane
Show and hide controls on the actions pane
Show and hide the actions pane

8. Managing Control Layout

9. Agenda Actions Pane Host Controls Smart Tags Overview
Managing Control Layout
Host Controls
Excel Host Controls
Word Host Controls
Dynamic Controls
Smart Tags

10. What is a Host Control?
A type that extends the host application (Word or Excel) Object Model to provide new functionality or to enhance programmability.

11. Host Control Features Extends Office object model
Properties and methods
Richer event model
WinForms style data binding
Simplifies programming model

12. Automating Excel without Host Controls

13. Agenda Actions Pane Host Controls Smart Tags Overview
Managing Control Layout
Host Controls
Excel Host Controls
Word Host Controls
Dynamic Controls
Smart Tags

14. Host Controls in Excel
Chart
ListObject
NamedRange
XMLMappedRange

15. Creating Excel Host Controls
Drag and drop host control from Visual Studio Toolbox
Drag and drop a data element from the Data Sources window that is mapped to a host control
Use menus to add the underlying Excel object to a document. The VSTO designer creates a host control to wrap the Excel object being created.
XMLMappedRange controls
Use the XML Source task pane

16. Using Excel Host Controls

17. Agenda Actions Pane Host Controls Smart Tags Overview
Managing Control Layout
Host Controls
Excel Host Controls
Word Host Controls
Dynamic Controls
Smart Tags

18. Host Controls in Word
Bookmark
XMLNode

19. Creating Word Host Controls
Bookmark controls
Drag/drop from Toolbox
Drag/drop from Data Sources window
Click Bookmark on the Insert menu
XMLNode controls
Use the XML Structure task pane

20. Using Bookmark Host Controls

21. Agenda Actions Pane Host Controls Smart Tags Overview
Managing Control Layout
Host Controls
Excel Host Controls
Word Host Controls
Dynamic Controls
Smart Tags

22. Dynamic Controls
A control (managed or host control) added to the Word or Excel document at runtime
Enable you to create interactive documents because you can add controls in response to user input or events

23. Managing Dynamic Controls
Controls collection references static and dynamic controls
Create dynamic controls with methods of the Controls collection
Managed controls: AddButton, AddTextBox
Host controls: AddBookmark, AddListObject, AddNamedRange
You cannot dynamically create XMLNode or XMLMappedRanges controls
You can only remove dynamic controls (not static) from the Controls collection at runtime

24. Dynamic Controls and Persistence
Dynamic controls are not persisted
Underlying data in dynamic host controls may be persisted. For example:
If you remove an Excel NamedRange control, the data in the cells remains
If you delete a Bookmark control, the contents of the bookmark remains

25. Dynamic Host Controls

26. Agenda Actions Pane Host Controls Smart Tags Overview
Managing Control Layout
Host Controls
Excel Host Controls
Word Host Controls
Dynamic Controls
Smart Tags

27. SmartTags Overview What is a SmartTag? What makes up a SmartTag?
Context Based Actions
What makes up a SmartTag?
Recognized Text
Actions

28. Developing VSTO SmartTags
Steps:
Create a SmartTag instance
Add strings to recognize
Add actions
Register SmartTag object with the document

29. Create a SmartTag Instance
Create a SmartTag object
Excel: Microsoft.Office.Tools.Excel.SmartTag
Word: Microsoft.Office.Tools.Word.SmartTag
Stores Recognizers
Terms Collection Property
Expressions Collection Property
Stores Actions
Actions Array Property

30. Create a SmartTag Instance
Constructor Parameters
SmartTag type
Caption
SmartTag myTag = new SmartTag
("
"Product Info");

31. Add Strings to Recognize
Terms Collection
Static strings
Expressions Collection
Regular expressions
myTag.Terms.Add(“Tofu”);
myTag.Expressions.Add
(new Regex(“[A-Z]{1}[0-9]{3}”));

32. Add Actions Create Action objects Set Caption property
Excel: Microsoft.Office.Tools.Excel.Action
Word: Microsoft.Office.Tools.Word.Action
Set Caption property
Action action1 = new Action("Reorder");
myTag.Actions = new Action[] {action1} ;

33. Add Action Click Event Create Click event for action
action1.Click += new ActionClickEventHandler(action1_Click);
void action1_Click(object sender, Microsoft.Office.Tools.Excel. ActionEventArgs e) {
// TODO: Add Event Handler Code }

34. Register SmartTag with Document
VstoSmartTagsCollection
Excel: ThisWorkbook class
Word: ThisDocument class
// In ThisWorkbook.cs
this.VstoSmartTags.Add(myTag);

35. Smart Tags

36. Summary Create actions pane with one line of code
Manage actions pane control layout
Host Controls give you the ability to rapidly develop powerful VSTO applications by providing:
Simplified programming model
Rich event model
Winforms style Databinding
Add controls to documents either at design time or run time
Use SmartTags to augment your UI based on document content

37. Next Steps Participate in our newsgroups and web forum
microsoft.public.vsnet.vstools.office
microsoft.public.officedev
microsoft.public.office.developer
Participate in VSTO-related blogs
Team blog:
VSTO MVP Chris Kunicki’s blog:
Attend a free chat or webcast

38. For More Information
Visit the VSTO sections of these MSDN® Developer Centers
Office Developer Center
Smart Client Developer Center
VSTO Help documentation on MSDN

39. Questions?

40. © 2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
This presentation is for informational purposes only. Microsoft makes no warranties, express or implied, in this summary.

41. Why extend Office OM?
To utilize the power of Word and Excel, we need to present most of the data in the document, not in Winform controls
Word and Excel Object Models expose types for this purpose
But the types exposed lack some features that .NET developers take for granted in Winforms

42. XMLMappedRange Host Control
Mapping cells in an Excel worksheet to an XML Schema is a feature provided by Excel.
When you map an Excel worksheet to XML, VSTO creates instances of XMLMappedRange host controls for each mapped cell
Almost same as the NamedRange Host Control.
Provides you direct programmatic access to the Range that is mapped to XML.

43. Adding Bookmark at Run Time
private void bookmarkExample() {
Microsoft.Office.Tools.Word.Bookmark
bookmark1 = this.Controls.AddBookmark(
this.Paragraphs[1].Range, “bookmark1”);
bookmark1.Text = “Sample bookmark text.”; }

44. Outlook Solutions Add custom menu with buttons to standard menu bar
Display custom forms
Add custom controls to custom forms

45. Outlook Task Add-in Solution