Overview of Visual Studio 2005 Tools for the Microsoft Office System Svetlana Loksh Development Lead Visual Studio Tools for Office Team Microsoft Corporation

Agenda What is a Smart Client? Introducing Visual Studio ® 2005 Tools for the Microsoft ® Office System (VSTO) Creating a VSTO project Adding an Actions Pane to a VSTO project Data Binding in VSTO Integrating Office XML Using VSTO InfoPath 2003 Toolkit for Visual Studio 2005 Outlook Add-ins Deployment and Security End-to-End Solution Demo Summary

Web Services & Offline/Onlinesupport DeviceAdaptability Tough to Deploy HeavyFootprint DLL Hell NetworkDependency Poor User Experience Rich UI Complex To Develop Rich User Experience DeveloperProductivity Responsive BroadReach Easy Change Management Ease of Deployment

Characteristics of Smart Clients Leverages Local Resources Takes full advantage of the local software (e.g. Office) and hardware (e.g. disk, memory, CPU, etc). Connected Provides connectivity to the enterprise, enabling timely access to live data and participation in business and collaborative processes Offline Capable Provides useful functionality when offline or in low quality connectivity situations Continued…

Characteristics of Smart Clients Intelligent Deployment And Update Provides easy application management Security Provides high level of security with managed code approach Device Flexibility Applications can be tuned or tailored to a specific client device, making appropriate use of the screen real estate, user interface facilities and local hardware (e.g. pen, speech, etc) Not all of these characteristics need to be present, but the more complete and advanced, the higher the Smart Client IQ

Microsofts strategic tool for developing Office solutions in Microsoft Excel 2003* Microsoft Word 2003* Microsoft InfoPath 2003 Microsoft Outlook 2003 (Add-in Support) Targeted at the professional developer It provides all the productivity of Visual Studio and all the power of the.NET Framework Develop solutions in VB.NET and Visual C# * Microsoft Office System Professional Edition or Excel 2003 or Word 2003 standalone versions or Excel 2003 or Word 2003 standalone versions

Major Focus on Developer Productivity Integrated design-time experience Full access to the.NET Framework, Web services, ADO.NET, integrated debugging Support for managed controls – from both Microsoft and third-party vendors Support for VSTO Host controls Support for managed Document Actions Pane & Smart Tags Schema-based programming model CLR-based security model New data caching capabilities

Controls, Controls, Controls VSTO enables developers to use WinForm managed controls within their VSTO solutions All controls on the toolbox are available for use They can be added directly to the document, to a WinForm, or the VSTO actions pane VSTO provides new host controls, which are.NET extensions to native Excel and Word objects Richer event models Data binding capabilities Developers can add controls explicitly at design time or dynamically at run time

Creating a VSTO Project

Managed Document Actions Pane VSTO enables developers to utilize the Office Task Pane via a managed Document Actions Pane Its simply a user control that will appear within the Office Task Pane Developers create the UI for the Document Actions Pane in the Windows Forms Designer They can then add the Actions Pane to the document with a single line of code! Dim MyAP As New ActionsPaneControl1 Globals.ThisWorkbook.ActionsPane.Controls.Add(MyAP)

Adding an Actions Pane to a VSTO Project

Data Binding in VSTO Developers can bind data from a given data source to managed controls and host controls The Data Sources Window enables developers to create a connection to database, Web service, or business object Developers do not have to write the code that binds the data to the control – its all generated automatically Developers can bind to a single item (simple data binding) or to a complete table or stored procedure (complex data binding)

Data Binding Controls in a VSTO Project

Integrating Office XML With Enterprise Data Using VSTO VSTO provides a schema-based programming model for documents that have a custom XML schema Not always necessary to explicitly manipulate XML No need to navigate the Office OM node hierarchy VSTO is a first-class consumer of Web services Complete access to.NET Framework support for consuming Web services VSTO solutions can manipulate XML via System.Xml

Programming Against An XML Node

XML HTTP SOAP WSDL UDDI BizTalkSQL ERPSAP XML InfoPath 2003 Toolkit for Visual Studio 2005 Provides a more flexible and accurate means of gathering information Provides and easy and more effective way to connect people, info and processes Provides developers with an easier way to develop and deploy information-gathering solutions

InfoPath Business Logic C#VB.NET Most Forms Do Not Need Code XML Schema Rules Formulas Data Validation Data Connections Conditional Formatting

Scenarios for Code Complex data validation Offline submit and data caching Dynamic help in the task pane Custom Digital Signature handling Encryption/decryption

Writing Managed Code Behind InfoPath

Outlook Add-ins The VSTO runtime supports Outlook add-ins Provides VSTO runtime loader More reliable add-in/host interaction Improved security and deployment model Design-time support in Visual Studio Outlook add-ins Project template Visual Studio Setup project for Outlook add-ins Improved debugging experience

Scenarios for Code Line of Business Applications Integration of Outlook Data into back end systems Calendar Integration Solutions Time tracking Collaboration Solutions RSS Aggregators, Integrated Sharepoint solutions Outlook Extension Solutions Search tools, personal organizational tools (thread compressor, attachment management) Personal Productivity Solutions Conf room finder, travel booking tools, customer survey tools

Writing Managed Code Behind Outlook

Deployment & Security

VSTO Deployment Basics Document and code (assembly) are separate VSTO has a manifest-based deployment model Application Manifest Embedded in the document and describes the solution (startup assembly, dependencies, deployment manifest) Deployment Manifest Points to the Application Manifest and handles Application Manifest version resolution Solution can intelligently update Continued…

VSTO Deployment Basics Three basic deployment models Local/Local – both document and assembly reside on local machine Local/Network – document resides on local machine, assembly resides on network Network/Network – both document and assembly reside on the network This is especially useful for Template projects Note: InfoPath deployment is slightly different Assemblies and manifest reside in an XSN XML files point to XSN

VSTO Client Requirements Office 2003 Professional Edition SP1 Or Excel/Word/Outlook standalone editions.NET Framework 2.0 VSTO 2005 Runtime Office Primary Interop Assemblies (PIAs) Appropriate security policies

Security Model VSTO uses.NET Code Access Security Evidence Location based for documents Any type of evidence for the assemblies Permissions Document location and code must be fully trusted Levels Enterprise, Machine, User, Application A given permission is granted only if all policy levels agree to grant it Default CLR Security policy is not enough Continued…

Security Model Note: InfoPath security is slightly different InfoPath assemblies support partial trust for Domain XSNs Doesnt need to use.NET Code Access Security because assemblies can be fully trusted when they are signed the XSN is installed

End-to-End VSTO Solution

Session Summary VSTO is a strategic Microsoft tool for developing document-centric Office solutions and Outlook Add-ins Enables development of document-centric solutions with managed code in Excel, InfoPath and Word Enables development of managed add-ins in Outlook VSTO 2005s new features provide advantages and benefits for both developers and information workers

Next Steps Participate in our newsgroups and web forum microsoft.public.vsnet.vstools.officemicrosoft.public.officedevmicrosoft.public.office.developer mID=16 Participate in VSTO-related blogs Team blog: VSTO MVP Chris Kunickis blog: Attend a free chat or webcast

For More Information Visit the VSTO sections of these MSDN ® Developer Centers Office Developer Center sto/default.aspx Smart Client Developer Center ding/vsto/default.aspx VSTO Help documentation on MSDN us,vs.80).aspx

Questions?

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