1. Jay Roxe Lead Product Manager jroxe@microsoft.com
Smart Client Development Using Visual Studio Tools for Office and Windows Mobile
Jay Roxe
Lead Product Manager

2. Agenda Understanding Smart Clients Building Smart Clients Using Office
Building Smart Clients for Mobile Devices

3. Smart clients are easily deployed and managed client applications
Web Services &
Offline/Online
support
Device
Adaptability
Tough to
Deploy
Heavy
Footprint
DLL Hell
Network
Dependency
Poor User
Experience
Rich UI
Complex
To Develop
Broad
Reach
Rich User
Experience
Developer
Productivity
Easy Change
Management
Responsive
Ease of
Deployment
Smart clients are easily deployed and managed client applications
that provide an adaptive and interactive experience by leveraging
local resources and intelligently connecting to distributed data sources.

4. Increasing Productivity

5. For line of business application developers, Visual Basic 2005 is the most productive tool for developing Windows, Web, Office and Mobile applications.

6. Visual Basic Design Goals
Increase productivity
Cut development time in half
Reduce code by more than 50%
Leverage full power of the desktop
Create rich windows client applications
Deploy with ease and safety of the Web
Provide full access to the platform
Maintain direct access to .NET Framework

7. Bringin’ Back the RAD Exception Assistant Edit and Continue
Debugger Visualizers
XML Documentation
Simplified IDE
AutoCorrect

8. Agenda Understanding Smart Clients Building Smart Clients Using Office
Building Smart Clients for Mobile Devices

9. Smart Clients on Office
Bedrock of features to leverage
Rich user experience provided by Office applications
XML schemas provide custom business structure
Actions task pane and Smart Tags enable contextual UIs
Online / Offline capable
Broadly used by knowledge workers
Familiar authoring and formatting of business documents
Analysis and calculation of business data
Information sharing and collaboration
Capitalize on the benefits of the Office platform
Power of Office platform investments
Improved end-user productivity and reduced data errors
Substantially reduce end-user training costs
Reduce end-user training costs
Users are already familiar with Word and Excel
Reduce copy/past and data re-entry errors
Connect documents to business data
Reduce development effort
Leverage existing functionality
Knowledge worker benefits
Access to Office feature richness for all LOB tools
Quicker adoption through user-familiar solutions
Reduced training costs
Improved user experience over web-based applications

10. Visual Studio 2005 Tools for the Microsoft Office System (VSTO)
Microsoft’s strategic tool for developing Office solutions:
Microsoft Excel 2003*
Microsoft Word 2003*
Microsoft InfoPath 2003
Microsoft Outlook 2003 Add-in Support
Targeted at the professional developer
Visual Basic 2005
Visual C#
Document-centric solutions for Excel, Word and InfoPath
Provides all the productivity of Visual Studio, and all the power of the .NET Framework
Leverages the skills of .NET developers
Based on .NET Code Access Security
Online Publish deployment model
* Microsoft Office System Professional Edition
or Excel 2003 or Word 2003 standalone versions

12. Reasons for using VSTO vs. VBA
VBA* is a 1990’s Technology
Subset syntax = limited functionality & flexibility
Code in document = no source code/version control
Casual security model = high potential security risk
Access to limited controls within Office applications
Visual Studio Tools for Office is 100% .NET
Complete syntax (Professional languages)
Choice of Visual Basic .NET or C#
Code Behind = mainstream source code control
“Publish” deployment for easier version control
.NET Security model = robust security enforced
Complete access to managed controls
* There are no pending plans to retire VBA at this time

13. Major focus on dev. productivity
Integrated design-time experience (Excel & Word right in the IDE)
Full access to the .NET Framework, Web services, ADO .NET, integrated debugging
Support for managed controls (MS and third-party)
First class “Hosted” controls
Managed Document Actions Pane & Smart Tags
Schema-based programming model
CLR-based security model
New data caching capabilities
Data island accessible in a server environment
Improved online publish deployment model

14. Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Integrated Design-time Experience
Excel/Word Designers
Windows Forms controls
Publish
Deployment
Hosted
Controls

15. Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Schema-Based Programming Model
Direct programmatic access to XML Nodes
XMLNode instances created for each schema element
Access XmlNode instances, instead of UI elements
Data binding support
Event model
ContextEnter/ContextLeave
AfterInsert/BeforeDelete
BidRequestRequestDateNode.Text = Now

16. Managed Controls Windows Forms Controls
Managed Windows Forms Controls are available
On the document or worksheet surface
On a Windows Form
On the Actions Pane
Simply drag-drop from the Toolbox onto the designer surface of your choice
May be dynamically added/removed at runtime
Third-party/Custom .NET user controls supported
On the document
When you want to display the controls 100% of the time.
When you want users to enter data directly in the document. For example, forms-based documents where the editing surface is locked.
When you want the controls to be in-line with the data in the document. For example, adding buttons to each row of a list object.
On the actions pane
When you want to provide contextual information to the user.
When you want only the results to appear in the document, as opposed to an entire list of data.
When you want to ensure that the controls do not get printed with the document.
When you want to ensure that the view of the document is not obstructed by the UI.
On a Windows form
When you want to control the size of UI.
When you want to prevent the users from hiding or deleting the controls.
When input from the user is required.

17. Actions Pane Context-based display of information

18. Actions Pane An Overview
Simplifies the developer experience
Simplified object model
Eliminates the need for XML expansion packs and XML mappings
Provides support for managed controls
The programming model is simplified. The ActionsPane object is available directly in your Visual Studio Tools for Office project. You simply add controls to the actions pane. You can create a user control and add it to the actions pane in the same way you create a user control to add to a Windows Form.
The actions pane is a Windows Forms control, as well as a container for other managed Windows Forms controls. The actions pane can contain the same Windows Forms controls that are available to Windows Forms. Developers can use the familiar Windows Forms designer to design the components for their actions pane.
XML expansion pack creation is not required. Smart document solutions required the use of an XML expansion pack. The XML expansion pack is the group of files that provide the logic needed for a smart document, such as XML schemas and Extensible Stylesheet Language Transforms (XSLTs). Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office System automatically attaches any necessary schemas and expansion packs and updates the registry settings.
XML mapping is not required. While you can map XML elements to your document and program the actions pane to show and hide controls according to cursor location within the XML nodes, XML mapping is not required. You can code against the actions pane to respond to any event such as view control, application, and document events.
Actions panes are an enhancement to the Smart Document feature introduced in Office 2003.

19. Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Managed Document Actions Task Pane
Layout UI with Windows Forms Designer (UserControls)
Add to document with a single line of code!
ISmartDocument implementation provided under the covers
Does not require mapping of XML Schema
Dim ctrl as new MyUserControl()
ActionsPane.Controls.Add(ctrl)

20. Microsoft Word Real Estate Offer

21. Motivations for Enabling Outlook Extensibility in VSTO
A lot of people “live” in Outlook
and tasks part of typical business process and document workflow
Desire for single interface for multiple back-end systems
Reduced training and expanded access as a result of familiar Office UI

22. Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Outlook Add-ins
Project template for Outlook Add-ins
Add-in loader component
Snippets & samples for common dev tasks
.NET Framework, Web services, ADO .NET, integrated debugging

23. Possible VSTO Outlook Scenarios
Line of Business Applications
Collaboration & Workflow Solutions
Digital Content Integration
Calendar Integration Solutions
Utilities & Tools

25. Visual Studio 2005 Tools for the Microsoft Office System Version 3 (Coded named Orcas)

26. Ribbon Extensibility Menus / toolbars are gone New extensibility model
Tab
Ribbon
Chunk
Menus / toolbars are gone
New extensibility model
Targeted same behavior across applications
Declarative markup with new controls
U.I. definitions are additive
Definitions fixed at load time
Document-level or application-level
Menus/Toolbars are gone
What happens to CommandBars (Add-Ins Tab)
For, anything coded against the CommandBars OM, other legacy OMs (XLM, WordBasic), and Attached toolbars in Word, Excel documents
Customization
End-users (quick access toolbar)
Solutions
New Extensibility Model
Benefits
Behaves the same for all of the apps
Office knows which add-in did what (O11: a free-for-all)
Simplified “attached UI model” – it’s just a part in a document
Less likely for Add-ins to conflict
Model
Uses markup files
Markup is incremental - just additions / edits to what we ship
Markup is relatively static – enable/disable (element-level?), show/hide as a whole
Document-level, or Application-level
Lives as a part in the New File Format, or inside COM Add-In
Easy to read and update
Licensing to 3rd parties

27. VSTO ‘v3’ - Overview Strategic platform infrastructure (WinFx, MAF)
Doc-level solutions
Word, Excel, InfoPath: 2003 onwards
Managed controls on the document surface
Doc-level ActionsPane
ServerDocument – manipulate documents without automating Office
Word content control support
App-level add-ins
Appdomain isolation
Remote updateability
All Office apps
App-level custom ActionsPane
Ribbon customization
Support for legacy “shared” add-ins
Highly-streamlined developer experience
New designers: ribbon, ActionsPane, Outlook
ClickOnce deployment and security

28. Custom Task Panes (CTPs)
VSTO 'v3' adds app-level CTPs to VSTO 2005 doc-level task pane
Create custom task panes with an add-in
All the benefits of VSTO add-ins
Where Office support CTPs, VSTO supports CTPs:
Access, Excel, InfoPath, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word
Fill the custom task pane with UserControls
Design-time and runtime support

29. CustomTaskPane and Ribbon

30. Summary
Office development is more approachable, discoverable, richer, and robust
Data binding makes your life easier
Hosted and managed controls provide greater design flexibility
Offline and server features extend the reach of Office application development
VSTO 2005 ships with:
Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office System 2005
Microsoft Visual Studio Team Systems
VSTO Version 3.0 in development

31. Agenda Understanding Smart Clients Building Smart Clients Using Office
Building Smart Clients for Mobile Devices

32. Outline Developing Windows Mobile Applications Windows Mobile 5.0
Devices and the Windows Mobile platform
Getting started with device development
User interface and controls
Windows Mobile 5.0
Common device tasks
State and Notifications Broker

33. Windows Mobile Devices
Windows Mobile provides a variety of device types
Pocket PC
Smartphone
Pocket PC Phone Edition

34. The Windows Mobile Platform
Common Win32 platform across device types
Mobile versions of productivity tools
Excel Mobile, Word Mobile, Pocket Outlook
Simplified access to device extensions
Camera, GPS, Phone

35. Developing for Windows Mobile
.NET Compact Framework 2.0
Leverage desktop .NET Framework skills
Optimized for smart devices
Provides 28% of the coverage in 8% of the size
Full support for VB 2005 and C# language features
Visual Studio 2005
Development experience consistent with desktop
Automated application deployment
Integrated device debugging
Emulators
Develop and debug applications without a device
Emulator Manager provides centralized control

36. Windows Mobile 5.0 Tools
Visual Studio 2005 is the single development tool for Windows Mobile 5.0 development
Supports build, deploy, debug across .NET Compact Framework 1.0/2.0 and native code for Windows Mobile 2003 devices upward
Integrates device development completely to Visual Studio development environment
Managed and native development in one place
IntelliSense
Remote Tools
eVC3, eVC4, and VS .NET 2003
Applications will still run
Cannot debug or deploy direct to Windows Mobile 5.0
Should be used for maintenance of apps for pre-2003 devices
So that’sthe dev platform in 15 minutes. Need tools to build applications. VS 2005 is single development tool for Magneto. Supports native and managed code including NET cf 1.0 and Supports 2003 upwards. By the time Magneto ships the number of 2002 devices in market should mean that you are only maintaining an old 2002 codebase which you can use eVC 3.0 for
Wanted to put all development in one place – server, desktop, mobile devices so we could invest in a single quality toolset. We wanted to give all developers benefit of VS toolset, things like intellisense but also to add to VS the things that we have in evc like remote tools.
FYI Apps built with old tools still work but cannot target new features and cannot debug

37. New Features in VS 2005
True ARM emulator with higher fidelity experience
Same executable/CAB for device and emulator
Realistic device performance
Direct3D and GAPI support
ActiveSync, Shared Folders, Rich Display, More Serial Ports
New debugger
Brand new architecture rewritten from line 0
Optimized for USB 2.0 performance
Attach to and debug a running process
Attach to multiple processes on multiple devices
New designers
Improved UI designers (docking and anchoring)
Data designers (drag, drop and bind SQL to forms)
Improved CAB designer support (new project type)
Multiplatform support
Target multiple devices and platforms with a variety of languages--all within a single project
There’s a bunch of cool new features. Scott and Nishan will cover later.
ARM emulator :
Debugger :
New designers :

38. Windows Mobile 5.0 Managed APIs
Focus on simplifying device development
Encapsulate common device tasks
Global Positioning System interaction
Camera and picture management
3-D Graphics and multimedia support
State and Notifications Broker (SNAPI)
Common repository for device information
Phone state, battery life, what song is playing
Sends notifications of changes in device state
Network availability, arrival of phone call
Arrival of SMS/ message

39. The Windows Mobile Developer Experience

40. User Interface Basics UI created with same form-based model as desktop
Most desktop controls available
Consistent properties support
Consistent event model
Device specific controls added
InputPanel
Notification
DocumentList

41. Working with Controls

42. Summary
Smart Clients allow developers to take advantage of all of the resources available on the machine
Developers with Windows Forms or ASP .NET development skills can leverage these to create applications for Office or Mobile devices