Develop Reference

DLLImportAttribute C# - Outlook

I'm trying to develop a snippet in C # code that enables the "voting option" function of Outlook.
This code will be used by a platform called Blue Prism.
The "vote" function of Outlook is in the Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook namespace, so I need to import it using C#, but I dont have enough knowledge to develop this.
I tried to do something like this but it is giving an error.
Here is the code:
public class program {
[DllImport(#"C:\Program Files\Blue Prism Limited\Blue Prism Automate\Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.dll", EntryPoint = "VotingOptions")]
public static extern string Outlook(uint type);
static void Main()
{
// Create the Outlook application.
Outlook.Application oApp = new Outlook.Application();
oApp.VotingOption = "Yes; No";
}
}
So, can someone help me?

The VotingOptions property belongs to the MailItem class , not Outlook Application. Voting options on messages are used to give message recipients a list of choices and to track their responses. To create voting options programmatically, set a string that is a semicolon-delimited list of values for the VotingOptions property of a MailItem object. The values for the VotingOptions property will appear under the Vote command in the Respond group in the ribbon of the received message.
private void OrderPizza()
{
Outlook.MailItem mail = (Outlook.MailItem)Application.CreateItem(
Outlook.OlItemType.olMailItem);
mail.VotingOptions = “Cheese; Mushroom; Sausage; Combo; Veg Combo;”
mail.Subject = “Pizza Order”;
mail.Display(false);
}
Also you may find the C# app automates Outlook (CSAutomateOutlook) sample project helpful, it shows how to automate Outlook in C#.

Com objects aren't accessed through DLLImport. They're accessed using references. From the sample Eugene linked:
Create a Console application and reference the Outlook Primary Interop Assembly (PIA). To reference the Outlook PIA, right-click the project file and click the "Add Reference..." button. In the Add Reference dialog, navigate to the .NET tab, find Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook 12.0.0.0 and click OK.
Now you'll have access to the Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook object.

If you are using Blue Prism then rather than having to specify DLL references you may also chose to go the GetObject or CreateObject way, you will be able to interact with Outlook just like Blue Prism does with Excel. The drawback of this approach is that you have to use VB.NET (unless I am mistaken) and that you will not be able to use text representation of enum values (so for OlItemType you will not be able to use olMailItem but only its numeric value, which is 0).
Please note that Blue Prism has released a new version recently (6.3) and with it a new VBO for interaction with Outlook. It's nothing revolutionary, but it may provide some insight.

Opening a downloaded Word document with VSTO in edit mode by default

I have a word document, downloaded from the internet, that I would like to perform some operations on in an Application-level Add-In. These operations (document search, unprotecting the document, etc) require that the document be in edit mode when it is opened. Here is some sample code that illustrates my needs:
private void ThisAddIn_Startup(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Application.DocumentOpen += application_DocumentOpen;
}
private void application_DocumentOpen(Document doc)
{
if (doc.ProtectionType != WdProtectionType.wdNoProtection)
{
// this throws a COMException if the document is opened in read-only mode
doc.Unprotect("password");
}
// ...
}
Since this add-in will be distributed to multiple users, I can't assume that the user will set any application properties, such as opening downloaded documents in edit mode by default, so doing it in code would be ideal. Is there some means with VSTO or the interop library to accomplish this, given my constraints? Thanks for any help.
EDIT: My application-level add-in was tested as installed on Word 2013, and was created with VS 2013, VSTO 4.0.
A sample document that displays the requisite characteristics can be found here. The document is protected with WdProtectionType.wdAllowOnlyFormFields, and the password is "password".

What version of Word/VSTO are you using.
I tried this using Word 2013 ( 64-bit ) and VSTO 4.0/Visual Studio 2013 and do not get any Exception in the even handler function "application_DocumentOpen". For both read-only and protected docs.
EDIT:
Try to change the view to Print View before unprotecting the document.
if (doc.ProtectionType != Word.WdProtectionType.wdNoProtection)
{
doc.ActiveWindow.View.Type = Word.WdViewType.wdPrintView;
doc.Unprotect("password");
}
Reference : http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2013_release-word/not-available-for-reading-error-on-unprotecting-a/a888701b-d70a-4dbc-a1ec-68b8bad80848

How do i load an automation addin (dll) programmatically from within a vsto addin

VSTO
VS2008 SP1
.NET 3.5
Excel 2007
I am a .net noob. I am trying to load an automation addin that is an excel application/automation addin (it is a dll not xla or xll) from within a vsto addin in the ThisAddIn_Startup() method of the vsto addin. From google I got the below solution which is not working.
private void ThisAddIn_Startup(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
Application excel = Globals.ThisAddIn.Application;
//Also tried without display alerts being set to false
excel.DisplayAlerts = false;
foreach (AddIn addin in excel.AddIns)
{
if (addin.progID.Equals("MY_ADDIN_PROG_ID"))
{
Debug.WriteLine("Addin installed is " + addin.Installed);
addin.Installed = false;
Debug.WriteLine("Addin is: " + addin.FullName + ", " + addin.progID);
Debug.WriteLine("Addin installed is " + addin.Installed);
}
}
AddIn addIn = excel.AddIns.Add("MY_ADDIN_PROG_ID", false);
addIn.Installed = true;
excel.DisplayAlerts = true;
Debug.WriteLine("Addin is: " + addIn.FullName + ", " + addIn.progID);
Debug.WriteLine("Addin installed is " + addIn.Installed);
excel.DisplayAlerts = false;
//OTHER STARTUP CODE
Debug.WriteLine("Starting up addin!");
}
Note, I can see the addin.installed is being set to false and back to true on startup but when I try to populate worksheet with udfs from the addin I tried to load in a later button_click method, I get #NAME? error. I am at my wits end. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
If I first try to call the udf in excel by typing it in a cell by hand before I call my button click method, the worksheet population works and the udfs get evaluted as expected but this is not ideal.
Also setting installed property to true does not seem to be doing anything as i can still see the udf addin as inactive in excel, it is only if I type it into a cell that it gets activated. Is there anything else I need to do to activate the automation addin in my vsto startup?
Thanks!

I'm not sure you want to do this in the startup event. I have done something similar but not quite the same before which may be applicable. I exposed some COM visible functions to VBA in a different event handler:
protected override object RequestComAddInAutomationService()
{
// return something com-visible
}
So maybe you can try to load your automation dll this way? This happens before the startup event fires... Excel might be doing something like locking its list of addins while a startup event is being handled - who knows? If it were possible to know Excel programming would be less tedious.

It is harder than it seems to combine VSTO and Automation in Excel. You may find my blog post helpful:
Communicating Between VSTO and UDF's in Excel

Just need to add String Value to the following registry key and you are good.
For Office 2007
Find regkey, HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOftware\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Excel\Options, then create string value, where name = OPEN, value = /A "YOUR ADDIN NAME HERE" (quotes need to be included as well.)
Note that for the first addin, value name should be called OPEN, for the second one and onwards, use OPEN1, OPEN2, ... etc.
For Office 2010
Just replace 12.0 with 14.0 in the above regkey path, the rest are all the same.
Check out below article on MSDN, which will also help you a lot.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/291392

Looks like this is a bug specific to VSTO. I converted my addin to a COM addin and was able to use the automation addin from code after that. My team has sent the issue to microsoft so we'll see what they say.

Exception when calling RTD server from Excel

I wrote a VSTO Excel addin using Visual Studio 2010 and after having managed to work around most of the obstacles Microsoft throws into the path of the righteous developer, I finally have to admit defeat.
My project contains a Ribbon with some controls, a custom task pane that allows users to search a database via a RESTful interface and a RTD server that lets them put this data in their worksheets. So far, so ... well, painful, I guess: After a lot of struggle with Interop, ComVisibility and AppDomains (what a great idea!), my current status is as follows.
In the worksheets, I call a wrapper function for RTD like this (snipped):
Public Function call(value as String)
Dim addin as Office.ComAddIn
Set addin = Application.ComAddIns("MyAddin")
addin.Object.RTD(value)
End Function
This is (part of) the addin class:
namespace Some
{
[Guid("...")]
[ComVisibleAttribute(true)]
[ClassInterface(ClassInterfaceType.AutoDual)]
public class MyAddin {
[snip]
public String RTD(String value)
{
String returner = null;
try
{
returner = Globals.ThisAddin.Application.WorksheetFunction.RTD(SERVERID, "", value);
}
catch(COMException ce)
{
returner = ce.StackTrace;
}
return returner;
}
}
}
And the relevant part of the RTD Server class:
namespace Some
{
[Guid("...")]
[ComVisibleAttribute(true)]
[ClassInterface(ClassInterfaceType.AutoDual)]
[ProgId("MyRTDServer")]
public class Server : Excel.IRtdServer
{
[snip]
}
}
In Debug mode I:
Create a, empty new workbook
Add an "=RTD(...)" formula to a cell
Add a wrapper function call "=call(...)" to a cell
Save the workbook
Open the workbook
Stop Debugging and start it again
Open the workbook
I observe:
At 3, everything works fine
At 5, everything works fine
At 7, when recalculating my cells, I get a Unable to get the RTD property of the WorksheetFunction class exception in the cell of 3) and #N/A in the cell of 2). However, I can see that the topics are registered in the RTD server and as soon as the data is available, the exception is replaced with the correct data. Also, if I do NOT recalculate the cells, they display the saved value and then correctly update to the retrieved value once the data is available.
If in deployed mode, I observe:
At 2, I get #N/A
At 3, I get a Unable to get the RTD property of the WorksheetFunction class exception
Any help, please? :(
EDIT:
Testing the same procedure with a very basic RTD server in a blank Addin project shows exactly the same results: a loaded excel file displays #N/A if an RTD-formula is recalculated before the server has the data available.
I would like to inquire: WTF?
Cheers,
Che

The 'Unable to get the RTD property....' error is just the Excel object model's way of saying there was an error in the function call.
Does your RTD server have any dependencies on the rest of your add-in? The fact that 2) fails when deployed, makes it look like the RTD server needs some other bits to be initialized before it runs happily. The way the VSTO add-in is put together, your assembly is likely to be loaded totally separately for the RTD server and for the COM add-in, and in your problematic cases the RTD instance is loaded first.
Perhaps you can test with a sample RTD server instead of your own, just to confirm that the error is there and not in the wrapper or elsewhere in the VSTO add-in. Then you can dig into your RTD server to see what goes wrong.
-Govert
Excel-DNA - Free and easy .NET for Excel

How-to: Run existing Word VBA Macros from C# Ribbon Addin

Background: I have an extensive set of specialized VBA macros used in Word for document formatting purposes. In Word 2003, these macros were activated from a customized toolbar. I have recently transitioned to Word 2007 and would like to be able to run these existing VBA macros from a new Word Ribbon created with VS 2010. I have created a Ribbon; however, I cannot figure out how to call the existing macros from the new Ribbon buttons.
Question: How do I call the existing VBA macros, which are stored in a .dotm template, from the C# Word Add-in?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The technique described in MS KB article 306683 -- in particular, function RunMacro defined there -- should allow you to call a VBA macro from within C# code: You define a function RunMacro
private void RunMacro(object oApp, object[] oRunArgs)
{
oApp.GetType().InvokeMember("Run",
System.Reflection.BindingFlags.Default |
System.Reflection.BindingFlags.InvokeMethod,
null, oApp, oRunArgs);
}
and then call your macro like this:
RunMacro(oApp, new object[] {"NameOfMyMacro"})
or
RunMacro(oApp, new object[] {"NameOfMyMacro", "some", 3, "parameters"})
oApp is the Word.Application object, which I'm sure is available somewhere in a Word add-in.