COM Add-in vs. ActiveX

[ablei2000]

What is the general recommendation when to use COM add-in vs. ActiveX (no reference to Microsoft Add-in designer)?

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

A COM addin can easily be distributed and runs in-process with
Outlook. It is usually the best way to add functionality to Outlook.
I'm not sure what you mean by an ActiveX. I use OCX's (ActiveX
controls) when I want to add a property page to Outlook.

What is the general recommendation when to use COM add-in vs.

ActiveX (no reference to Microsoft Add-in designer)?

 

[ableI2000]

Thank you, Ken
You have answered on my another question about the grid control on Outlook Form

My understanding is that if you are not referencing Microsoft Add-in designer library the
you are creating ActiveX dll. It doesn't handle directly the Outlook events. You have to call
public methods from Vbscript and pass the Item object to use this approac

thank you

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

Even without a designer you can create a class module and Implement
IDTExtensibility2 to create a COM addin DLL. You just need to handle
the registration of the DLL yourself if you aren't using a designer.
You still need to Implement IDTExtensibility2 and handle all its
exposed events even with a designer.

You can also implement Outlook automation in a standalone program such
as an EXE, I do that all the time too.

Thank you, Ken.
You have answered on my another question about the grid control on Outlook Form.

My understanding is that if you are not referencing Microsoft Add-in designer library then
you are creating ActiveX dll. It doesn't handle directly the

Outlook events. You have to call

 

[ablei2000]

Thank you Ken.

We end up developing huge ActiveX Dll (about 8000 lines of codes)
to handle complex Outlook application – no COM add-ins. All the calls
into ActiveX made from very thin VBscript subs.

Thank you again,