Office Development

What is VSTA all about?

Patrick Tisseghem — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 06:18:00 GMT

VSTO...VISTA...VSTA.. It is sometimes becoming confusing for the students :). VSTA stands for the Visual Studio Tools for Applications and is a version of Visual Studio.NET 2005 that ISVs can license and embed within their own products to allow their users to extend these products. If you install Microsoft InfoPath 2007, you actually have the option to install VSTA along the ride and have the Microsoft Script Editor replaced by it so that you can extend InfoPath templates with .NET code directly instead of using VSTO. I have wondered a couple of times what I should tell about when to use VSTO and when to use VSTA for extending InfoPath. The results look the same, don't they?

Anyway, there is an on-demand webcast on the US Partner Readiness site titled ISV Touchdown Web Seminar: Overview of Visual Studio Tools for Application (VSTA) that is getting you started. It also explains the roadmap for VSTA.

TOP 10 Things You CAN and CAN'T Do with Meeting Workspaces!

Patrick Tisseghem — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 04:53:00 GMT

Gene again compiled a nice set of SharePoint material for the 3rd SharePoint Show. For those of you unaware of it, it is a podcast you definitely have to listen to if you are doing SharePoint. Here is what it is all about:

The latest SharePoint Show delves into the fascinating and sometimes frustrating world of Meeting Workspaces, in an indepth conversation with Eric Legault, Outlook MVP and SharePoint consultant from Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Released with the show are these additional resources:

A 12-page document providing a lot of additional details about the TOP TEN list discussed on the show, lots of illustrations explaining the nuances of workspaces, along with a chart of how a meeting workspace differs from a "regular" SharePoint site, and
"The SharePoint Show Guide to Meeting Workspaces", a new subsite area within SharePointShow.com containing samples of different types of meeting workspaces.

Both of these additional resources are available free of charge, via the Contributors Club area of SharePointShow.com.

Excel UDFs in VSTO managed code

Patrick Tisseghem — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 09:16:00 GMT

Paul and John are talking about Excel UDFs (User Defined Functions) and how you can start creating them in VSTO managed code. It is a great way to call managed code in your VBA.

Microsoft IT Showcase: Expense Reports Made Easy with Microsoft Office Solutions

Patrick Tisseghem — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 08:25:00 GMT

Video overview of the MS Expense InfoPath client. Created to enhance the productivity and user experience of its highly mobile workforce, Microsoft created an expense reporting tool based on Microsoft Office technologies. The InfoPath form provides highly mobile users with an intuitive, rich client, expense reporting experience. It seamlessly connects to an existing backend expense reporting system. Because of the ease of use and built-in controls, the tool is expected to speed the submission of expense reports, while reducing redundant expense reporting and the need for manual audits.

Share your O12 Beta 1 Experience!

Patrick Tisseghem — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 07:47:00 GMT

I think a lot of bloggers have been waiting for this. It seems that we can finally start sharing our experiences with the beta 1 of Office 12, although it is limited to the Office 12 client products. This is what Josh writes: 'According to company officials you are now allowed to blog about the Office 12 client suite of applications including: Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, Access, Publisher, Visio, Project, OneNote and InfoPath'. So no O12 server components yet! But enough for me to start with!

I also checked it out with Fitz. He had not heard about it but nodded that the news seems ok. This is what Ed has to say about it.

New Microsoft CTPs coming out

Patrick Tisseghem — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 07:36:00 GMT

This week is VSLive in the States and a number of new announcements were made. One for example is the announcement that Microsoft will release soon 4 new CTPs (Community Technology Previews). Interesting is that these CTPs deal with technologies that are already based on the new version of Visual Studio.NET (code-named 'Orcas'). I know of a fifth one that Office developers will certainly like but I leave it up to the Microsoft guys to reveal that one. So, what can we expect (this is all based on an VSLive newsletter that I received this morning):

VSTA, or Visual Studio Tools for Applications. This CTP should be available this Friday, Feb 3, 2006. If you attended PDC, you might have heard about the new InfoPath '12' and its new managed object model. VSTA replaces the Microsoft Script Editor and will allow you to hook up C# or VB.NET directly with your InfoPath forms. I have been doing some tests with it and it works great. Much better than before.
LINQ, a VB add-in that builds on the earlier LINQ preview. You can download it here now and read more here. LINQ is Language INtegrated Query. I saw some demos on it and Peter Himschoot and Wim Uyttersprot (both from U2U) have written a nice article on it in the Dutch .NET magazine.
CIDER, which is a VS Designer for WinFX Windows Presentation Foundation tools, available in the December 16 download and coming soon in a new one, I believe, since the December preview is very basic (more details in the WIKI).
TFS -- Team Foundation Server, discussed in more depth elsewhere, should have a release candidate ready soon before the anticipated March release.

First round of Office 12 ascend completed

Patrick Tisseghem — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 09:03:00 GMT

This week I am taking a break in my O12 ascend tour having finished the first three ones with a lot of good and positive feedback. The material is way too much for only 4 days but the participants in Chertsey (UK), Paris and Munchen were very excited about all of the new stuff we will bring out next fall. It seems that here in Europe, most of the attendees (and they are all working for companies that are ISVs), are more into the Office client-side development but they were very impressed with the new WSS v3 solutions framework. Personally, my favorite topics to cover are the new features framework in WSS v3 and InfoPath '12'. Man, the way you can now customize, package, deploy and activate your own custom solutions for SharePoint is incredibly simple, rich and flexible. I am very curious about all of the additions on top of WSS that people (and the community) will bring out the next couple of months. I have already a couple of them in the pipeline. Just waiting for the nagging NDA to go away and start posting about it :)

One of the reasons why I like to travel so much is learning new people. In three weeks, I have met about 60 new people from all around the world (Europe, but also New Zealand and South-Africa). Here is a nice picture of the whole bunch in Paris where we had a lovely dinner and went for a walk after that. That was quite impossible in Munchen last week with temperatures around -20 C° but we had good Greek and Italian food (and of course a lot of beer).

So, this week no travel? You kidding! I am going for the first time to Kolding in Denmark giving a wide overview of information worker technologies to a pre-sales department of a company over there. And then the week after that, I have my second round of O12 ascend with two locations: Denmark again and Italy.

Office 12 named Office 2007?

Patrick Tisseghem — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 12:47:00 GMT

Bink just posted the updated logo of Office 12 and talks about the possibility of O12 becoming Office 2007. I am a bit dissappointed in the name I must confess. I would have expected more creativity. Office Vista ? :)

UK SharePoint User Group and BIWUG

Patrick Tisseghem — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 22:30:00 GMT

Today I received this email from Nick trying to get my interest in the new SharePoint User Group in the UK. Community stuff always interest me so I looked up their site and they have their first user meeting on the February 13th. Reviewing their agenda I must say they mean it seriously there in the UK. I think they have some nice topics scheduled that evening. Wonder whether the user control and Web part session will include the SmartPart :)

Here in Belgium our Information Worker User Group (BIWUG) is going for its 4th meeting on February 2nd. We have compiled an exciting agenda also with first a session by myself talking about the new Office 12 Open XML File Format and the new XML Paper Specification (XPS) and then followed by a re-delivery of a very interesting session on backup and recovery of SharePoint sites and portals by Marc Pollentier with the help of Joris Poelmans. If you are interested, go to our site and register yourself or send me an email.

Update: I just found out that we have a third user group focused on Information Worker technologies. Good going guys. DIWUG is the Dutch Information Worker User Group. Read more on their activities over here.

Registering for Office '12' Beta 2

Patrick Tisseghem — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 08:40:00 GMT

We expect the beta 2 of Office '12' to be released end of February. Time for everybody who likes to get their hands on the bits to register themselves. Having worked for months now on O12, I think it is the best release ever with endless possibilities for partners to start building solutions on top of it or integrated with it. So, quickly go here and register. Tx Marc for the link.