Outlook AddOn With User Control (Task Pane / Custom Form)

• Download Outlook addon - 194.9 KB
• Download addon - 72.2 KB

Introduction

The goal of this project is to show how simple it is to create a custom pane in the Microsoft Outlook [3] and do some action based on the Email address of the current Email object:

This tool reads an address of current selected Email and shows in the pane on the right side the appropriate folders with its sub-folders.

Now, a user can easy drag-drop the Email in one of the sub-folders in order to save its attachment there.

The mapping between the Email addresses and the folders takes place in the configuration file, please take a look at OutlookAddOn.xml:

<file_system>
    <folder>impressum@amazon.de|C:\TEMP</folder>
    <folder>rechnungsstelle@1und1.de|D:\_Download</folder>
 </file_system>

As you see, the address is separated from folder by pipe character like this:

<folder>Attachment_of_Emails_with_this_address ... | ... should_be_saved_in_sub-folders_of_this_folder</folder>

As the <folders> is a list of entries, user is able to add as many addresses as he needs.

Background

The technique behind is the VSTO (Visual Studio Tools For Office). This API makes it possible to get all information of an Email object, for example, the count of attachments as well as the attachment itself.

Some registry entries are necessary when you deploy VSTO Add-ins that are created by using Visual Studio. These registry entries provide information that enable the Microsoft Office application to discover and load the VSTO Add-in [1].

When a VSTO Add-in is installed, it can be registered in two ways:

• For the current user only (that is, it is available only to the user that is logged on to the computer when the VSTO Add-in is installed). In this case, the registry entries are created under the HKEY_CURRENT_USER.
• For all users (that is, any user that logs on to the computer can use the VSTO Add-in). In this case, the registry entries are created under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.

This is an example of how to install Add-in for the current user:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins\OutlookAddOn]
"Description"="OutlookAddOn"
"FriendlyName"="OutlookAddOn"
"LoadBehavior"=dword:00000003
"Manifest"="H:/_Projekte/OutlookAddOn/bin/Release/OutlookAddOn.vsto|vstolocal"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Vsto Runtime Setup\v4]
"EnableVSTOLocalUNC"=dword:00000001

You will need to replace the H:/_Projekte/OutlookAddOn/bin/Release/ with the path of the folder contained AddOn and to save this code snipped in a file *.reg. By executing this file (double click), all keys will be added to the windows registry:

How Outlook VSTO AddOn Works (Callbacks)

There are two important callback functions that are necessarily needed to get an AddOn working [4]:

The Startup method - a kind of constructor, a perfect place to create our custom form / pane:

private void ThisAddIn_Startup(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{ 
    try
     {
         oUserCtrl = new axUserCtrl(this);  
         ...

And the Explorer.SelectionChange event which will be fired every time an Email item get selected:

private void CurrentExplorer_Event()
{
    if (this.Application.ActiveExplorer().Selection.Count == 1)
     {
           Object selObject = Application.ActiveExplorer().Selection[1];

           if (selObject is MailItem)
           {
                MailItem mailItem = (selObject as MailItem);
                oUserCtrl.SetEmail(mailItem); 
                ...

That is actually all that we need:

• We have created a custom form that will be shown as a pane embedded in Outlook, and
• We get a notification / callback every time the Email selection changed - the current Email item will be provided to the custom form!

One information that we need is the Email address to show an appropriated folder, the second information is the path to the attachment to store it into this folder.

Another important point is to use the worker thread wherever we do something in the background:

_workerThread = new Thread(_oWorker.GetResultList);
_workerThread.Start();

We should avoid the freezing of the GUI, otherwise our AddIn can be refused by Outlook.

Using the Code

The axFileSystemWorker is derived from axBaseWorker in order to show one of many possibilities, what can be achieved by using the VSTO interface:

enMode nMode = _oWorker.GetMode();
if (nMode == enMode.eFILE_SYSTEM) 
    _oWorker = new axFileSystemWorker(this) as iWorker;
/*
else if () ... and so long to use another modes
*/

We can easily implement a REST interface (POST, GET) or something else by deriving from axBaseWorker and overriding the virtual methods, for example:

public virtual bool Connect()
{
    throw new NotImplementedException();
}

Points of Interest

• [1] Registry entries for VSTO Add-ins - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/vsto/registry-entries-for-vsto-add-ins?view=vs-2019
• [2] Create VSTO Add-ins for Office by using Visual Studio - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/vsto/create-vsto-add-ins-for-office-by-using-visual-studio?view=vs-2019
• [3] Add a custom task pane to an application - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/vsto/how-to-add-a-custom-task-pane-to-an-application?view=vs-2019
• [4] Programmatically determine the current Outlook item - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/vsto/how-to-programmatically-determine-the-current-outlook-item?view=vs-2019

History

• Version 1.1.0 - the current version of tool
• Added Chapter "How Outlook VSTO AddOn Works"