problems with OVC .Restriction in a VB form used in an Outlook dll

[codemonkey_147]

greetings.

current state of the union:
userdefined fields have been added to custom Outlook forms and are
being accessed and maintained by way of a dll
with those forms Project information (such as Project ID number,
Project Name, etc) can be associated with a particular Outlook item.
in most items the itemroject association is n:1 , and therefore each
individual piece of info has a userdefined field in the form and
published in the folder, except for the Contacts , where the
association is n:n .in ordert to accomodate that a different field was
created that stores the project information in a structured ,
delimited format and updates it according to user input.

in oder to take advantage of this information i created a VB form and
added an Outlook ViewCtl item to it. the idea was that the user can
pick a certain Project beforehand and use buttons on the form to
switch between folders which would only show the contents that applied
to the previously defined project. the criteria by which would be
decided what items would be shown was the ProjectID and the folder
which were to be applied to the ViewCtl were known (ie. always the
same folders).
4 of the 6 folders have the "ProjectID" field, the other 2 have the
"info" field that contains the delimited string (which can contain 1
or more instances of a ProjectID)

upon selection of a button the .Folder and .Restriction properties of
the ViewCtl should be changed (which should show the desired effects
inside the view control in the Form)

the problem i have run into is that the buttons/changes for the 4
folders that have the "ProjectID" field function properly, yet the 2
that have the "info" field throw an error as soon as the .Restriction
is being set.
i have double checked and the "info" property is defined both as a
field on the form and as a userdefined folder field. furthermore the
code used to change the fields is identical for all the Subroutines.

the code that i'm using to change the field properties:

' inside Private Sub ________Click(Index As Integer)
' temp is a String variable set to the path of the folder the OVC is
supposed to work with at the time
' strProjectIDNum is a String variable set to the Project ID number to
be used as a filter

frmProjDialog.ovcResults.Item(frmProjDialog.ovcResults.UBound).DeferUpdate
= True
frmProjDialog.ovcResults.Item(frmProjDialog.ovcResults.UBound).Folder
= temp
frmProjDialog.ovcResults.Item(frmProjDialog.ovcResults.UBound).DeferUpdate
= False
frmProjDialog.ovcResults.Item(frmProjDialog.ovcResults.UBound).Restriction
= _
"[ProjectID] = """ & strProjectIDNum & """"

? why am i not using a "With" / "End With" statement block? it broke
the code, last i tried. after i removed it some errors disappeared.
? why am i including the (frmProjDialog.ovcResults.UBound) ? because
apparently there is an array defined within the ViewCtl and the one
and only item in it is @ pos 6. to make sure i get it (in case that
value changes) i access it at UBound.

my questions.
- is there anything about the viewctl that i have missed
(initializationwise etc.)
- am i using (referencing & setting) the properties correctly
- any ideas on why the same code for the same type of thing (changing
the value of a user defined property) will work for one but not the
other

i could really use some help on this and would appreciate any ideas.
any further questions & clarifications i can provide, just ask.

-cm

 

[Eric Legault [MVP - Outlook]]

I believe your issue is that the custom Info field you describe is using the
Keywords data type, and this field may contain multiple values. Here's an
excerpt from the Restrict method in Outlok VBA Help on Keywords fields:

The Categories field is of type keywords, which is designed to hold multiple
values. When accessing it programmatically, the Categories field behaves like
a Text field, and the string must match exactly. Values in the text string
are separated by a comma and a space. This typically means that you cannot
use the Find and Restrict methods on a keywords field if it contains more
than one value. For example, if you have one contact in the Business category
and one contact in the Business and Social categories, you cannot easily use
the Find and Restrict methods to retrieve all items that are in the Business
category. Instead, you can loop through all contacts in the folder and use
the Instr function to test whether the string "Business" is contained within
the entire keywords field.

Note A possible exception is if you limit the Categories field to two, or a
low number of values. Then you can use the Find and Restrict methods with the
OR logical operator to retrieve all Business contacts. For example (in
pseudocode): "Business" OR "Business, Personal" OR "Personal, Business."
Category strings are not case sensitive.

--
Eric Legault (Outlook MVP, MCDBA, MCTS: Messaging & Collaboration)
Try Picture Attachments Wizard for Outlook:
http://www.collaborativeinnovations.ca
Blog: http://blogs.officezealot.com/legault/

greetings.

current state of the union:
userdefined fields have been added to custom Outlook forms and are
being accessed and maintained by way of a dll
with those forms Project information (such as Project ID number,
Project Name, etc) can be associated with a particular Outlook item.
in most items the itemroject association is n:1 , and therefore each
individual piece of info has a userdefined field in the form and
published in the folder, except for the Contacts , where the
association is n:n .in ordert to accomodate that a different field was
created that stores the project information in a structured ,
delimited format and updates it according to user input.

in oder to take advantage of this information i created a VB form and
added an Outlook ViewCtl item to it. the idea was that the user can
pick a certain Project beforehand and use buttons on the form to
switch between folders which would only show the contents that applied
to the previously defined project. the criteria by which would be
decided what items would be shown was the ProjectID and the folder
which were to be applied to the ViewCtl were known (ie. always the
same folders).
4 of the 6 folders have the "ProjectID" field, the other 2 have the
"info" field that contains the delimited string (which can contain 1
or more instances of a ProjectID)

upon selection of a button the .Folder and .Restriction properties of
the ViewCtl should be changed (which should show the desired effects
inside the view control in the Form)

the problem i have run into is that the buttons/changes for the 4
folders that have the "ProjectID" field function properly, yet the 2
that have the "info" field throw an error as soon as the .Restriction
is being set.
i have double checked and the "info" property is defined both as a
field on the form and as a userdefined folder field. furthermore the
code used to change the fields is identical for all the Subroutines.

the code that i'm using to change the field properties:

' inside Private Sub ________Click(Index As Integer)
' temp is a String variable set to the path of the folder the OVC is
supposed to work with at the time
' strProjectIDNum is a String variable set to the Project ID number to
be used as a filter

frmProjDialog.ovcResults.Item(frmProjDialog.ovcResults.UBound).DeferUpdate
= True
frmProjDialog.ovcResults.Item(frmProjDialog.ovcResults.UBound).Folder
= temp
frmProjDialog.ovcResults.Item(frmProjDialog.ovcResults.UBound).DeferUpdate
= False
frmProjDialog.ovcResults.Item(frmProjDialog.ovcResults.UBound).Restriction
= _
"[ProjectID] = """ & strProjectIDNum & """"

? why am i not using a "With" / "End With" statement block? it broke
the code, last i tried. after i removed it some errors disappeared.
? why am i including the (frmProjDialog.ovcResults.UBound) ? because
apparently there is an array defined within the ViewCtl and the one
and only item in it is @ pos 6. to make sure i get it (in case that
value changes) i access it at UBound.

my questions.
- is there anything about the viewctl that i have missed
(initializationwise etc.)
- am i using (referencing & setting) the properties correctly
- any ideas on why the same code for the same type of thing (changing
the value of a user defined property) will work for one but not the
other

i could really use some help on this and would appreciate any ideas.
any further questions & clarifications i can provide, just ask.

-cm