Microsoft SharePoint. Building Office 2007 Solutions in VB 2005 ...

346CHAPTER 9 ■ SHAREPOINT AND MICROSOFT OFFICEAlong with the components and stubbed-out code, the new solution also contains a setupproject. This setup project is suitable for deploying add-ins directly to client machines. Creatingan add-in and making it available to clients using the project templates can be a fairlysimple process.Creating Office 2007 Add-InsOffice 2007 supports the concept of an add-in that lets you add custom functionality to Officeapplications through the use of buttons that appear on the ribbon. Typically, add-ins are initiatedby interacting with buttons on the ribbon that in turn exercise the application objectmodel to achieve some functionality. For example, you could place a button on the Insert tabthat adds a standard legal disclaimer to a document when it is pushed. The actual functionalityof an add-in is limited only by what you can do with the .NET Framework and the objectmodel of the targeted Office application.Once you have started a new project in Visual Studio that targets a particular application,you can add buttons to the ribbon by using the Ribbon Support component. The Ribbon Supportcomponent is available in the Add New Item dialog. When you add this component, VSTO2005 SE adds a new class to your project along with an XML file that holds button definitions.Follow these steps to start a new add-in project:1. Select Start ➤ All Programs ➤ Visual Studio 2005 ➤ Visual Studio 2005.2. In Visual Studio, select File ➤ New ➤ Project from the main menu.3. In the New Project dialog, select Visual Basic ➤ Office ➤ 2007 Add-Ins from the ProjectTypes tree.4. Select Word Add-In from theVisual Studio templates.5. Enter HelloAddIn in the Name field and click the OK button.6. In the Solution Explorer, right-click the HelloAddIn project and select Add ➤ New Itemfrom the context menu.7. In the New Item dialog, select the Ribbon Support component.8. Name the new component MyAddInsTab.vb and click the Add button.Loading the Ribbon SupportWhen the Ribbon Support component is added, it comes with some code to automaticallyadd the new elements to the target application’s ribbon, but this code is commented out. Inorder to load your new elements, you simply have to uncomment this code, which overridesthe RequestService method of the add-in. This is the method that is called when the Officeapplication loads your Ribbon Support component. The code in Listing 9-7 shows theuncommented code from the MyAddInsTab.vb file.