Rolling my own "task pane"

[Ivan Wilson]

I'm trying to mimic the task pane functionality that users get with
Office 2003 and SharePoint.

Now, from my research to date, this looks like it's not really
supported yet. Smart Documents don't suit my needs because I need this
feature to work on standard documents.

I can't wait for Whidbey and VSTO 2 - which looks like it's got a lot
of what I want to do built in.

I've also ruled out the Information Bridge Framework - too much
overhead.

Can I create a command bar that contains an ActiveX control? The
command bar would be docked to the side of the window, to make it look
like a task pane. Some postings allude to this being an "unsupported"
feature.

If so, where would I find information about this? My control needs to
be able to call web services to retrieve the information it needs to
display. Does this mean using VSTO?

I'd also need to be able to query the active document's properties for
values to pass on to my web service. Is is straightforward for a
commandbar/activex control/com-addin to query this?

Any suggestions on other alternatives would be appreciated. I have seen
some products that have created taskpane-like functionality within the
Office environment, so I know it's feasible. I just don't know how to
go about it.

Thanks

Ivan

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Ivan,

Can I create a command bar that contains an ActiveX control? The
command bar would be docked to the side of the window, to make it look
like a task pane. Some postings allude to this being an "unsupported"
feature.

If so, where would I find information about this? My control needs to
be able to call web services to retrieve the information it needs to
display. Does this mean using VSTO?

Not VSTO, necessarily, but you'd need to create a COM Addin using .NET.
That will allow you to create toolbars with controls not supported by
Office VBA. And will also make it fairly easy to work with web services,
etc.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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[David Wendt]

Hi Ivan,

Not VSTO, necessarily, but you'd need to create a COM Addin using .NET.
That will allow you to create toolbars with controls not supported by
Office VBA. And will also make it fairly easy to work with web services,
etc.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)


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Cindy, if you could indulge just a bit more here....
I know how to create a COM Addin and I know how to create a CommandBar.
How would I add an ActiveX control (or any non-button control for that
matter) to the CommandBar?

David Wendt