Adding button to reading pane in outlook 2003 using shared addins

[vidishasharma]

Hi,

I am trying to add button in reading pane in outlook 2003 using shared
addins however I am getting no solution to do that. Can somebody
suggest how is it achievable using shared addin

Tom

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

It's not achievable no matter what kind of addin you're writing. You would
need to create a button and find the reading pane using Win32 API calls and
overlay your button "window" over the reading pane, handling click events
also from Win32 API callbacks.

 

[vidishasharma]

Thank you for the quick response. I appreciate

Can you please direct me to some examples how I can invoke these Win32
API calls. I have never worked with Win32 API and therefore some
example as to how to find reading pane using Win32 API calls would be
of great help.

 

[Andrei Smolin [Add-in Express]]

You may look at Add-in Express - a tool for creating Office 2000-2007 COM
add-ins. It allows embedding custom .NET forms into Outlook Explorer,
Inspector, Navigation Pane, To-Do Bar, and Reading Pane windows. See
http://www.add-in-express.com/add-in-net/tour.php?lp=outlook-forms-views-regions.

This feature relies on Win32 API immensely. The instrument used for creating
this feature is Spy++ available in the Visual Studio setup folder.

Regards from Belarus (GMT+2),

Andrei Smolin
Add-in Express Team Leader
www.add-in-express.com

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

I don't know of any canned examples of what you want. As Andrei mentioned
you can use Spy++ to see what window class and caption are used for the
reading pane and that would be your starting point.

Something like this is really not a trivial thing to code at all, it will
take a lot of study and experimentation or the use of an experienced Win32
API programmer.

 

[vidishasharma]

I don't know of any canned examples of what you want. As Andrei mentioned
you can use Spy++ to see what window class and caption are used for the
reading pane and that would be your starting point.

Something like this is really not a trivial thing to code at all, it will
take a lot of study and experimentation or the use of an experienced Win32
API programmer.

--
Ken Slovak
[MVP - Outlook]http://www.slovaktech.com
Author: Professional Programming Outlook 2007
Reminder Manager, Extended Reminders, Attachment Optionshttp://www.slovaktech.com/products.htm

Thank you for the quick response. I appreciate

Can you please direct me to some examples how I can invoke these Win32
API calls. I have never worked  with Win32 API and therefore some
example as to how to find reading pane using Win32 API calls would be
of great help.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

All this sound quite difficult.....

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

It is difficult. If it was easy you'd see lots of addins doing things like
that.

I don't know of any canned examples of what you want. As Andrei mentioned
you can use Spy++ to see what window class and caption are used for the
reading pane and that would be your starting point.

Something like this is really not a trivial thing to code at all, it will
take a lot of study and experimentation or the use of an experienced Win32
API programmer.

--
Ken Slovak
[MVP - Outlook]http://www.slovaktech.com
Author: Professional Programming Outlook 2007
Reminder Manager, Extended Reminders, Attachment
Optionshttp://www.slovaktech.com/products.htm

All this sound quite difficult.....

 

[vidishasharma]

As you mentioned

"You would need to create a button and find the reading pane using
Win32 API calls and
overlay your button "window" over the reading pane, handling click
events
also from Win32 API callbacks."

Does that mean I can overlay the button over the reading pane or Do I
have to create all together a new window with a button at the desired
location and then I have to overlay my newly created window over the
reading pane.

Please help

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

I believe you would overlay your button, which would be a window really,
over the reading pane wherever you wanted it to appear. This is all
undocumented stuff and I've never seen anywhere a step by step of what to do
or how, and I've never done it myself, so you're really on your own in this.

 

[vidishasharma]

Thanks for guiding me I really appreciate.

 

[vidishasharma]

I have added a win32 api button in reading pane using
_childwindow = CreateWindowEx(WS_EX_LEFT, "BUTTON", "Childwindow",
WS_CHILD | WS_VISIBLE, 750,60, 20, 20,
_windowLike, IntPtr.Zero , IntPtr.Zero,IntPtr.Zero );


I was very much able to do that

now I tried to get the control using following lines of code however
Control b = Control.FromHandle(_childwindow);

however I get the cotrol as null. I read it that "FromHandle only
works for HWNDs that were directly created by a Windows Forms control
or form." If that is true how can I get this button control in my c#.
I want to attach a click event to this control.

Also I want to know how to handle events for windows created using
Win32 APIs in .Net appliaction

I am totally struck Please help.

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

You will need to use a Windows callback to your code, where you monitor for
mouse clicks directed to your button window. See if the following tutorial
helps:
http://www.java2s.com/Tutorial/CSharp/0520__Windows/HookinguptoaWindowsCallback.htm

You can also google for "c# windows callback", there are quite a few other
hits on that.

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

This is an even better link, it explicitly deals with mouse and keyboard
clicks: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/globalhook.aspx

 

[vidishasharma]

Hi,

I am able to achieve the events for win32 api button I added in my
reading pane of outlook. Now on mouseover on that button I want to
display a .Net windows form at a location just below the win32 button.

I am trying to achieve this by setting the location of windows form
wrt to the cordinates of the win32 api button. I very much get the
correct cordinates of the button however when I try to set those
coordinates for winform I am unable to do that.

On debuging I see that even I try to set the location of winform
still it is taking some default location. I am not getting what wrong
os going here.

Please guide me what wrong I am doing.

Regards.

 

[vidishasharma]

I figured it out

where t.handle is the handle of my window form
_windowHandle is the handle of my outlook.

SetParent(t.Handle, _windowHandle);

did all the charm.