A Programmer with Microsoft tools

Series

Developing Outlook helper – introduction

Developing Outlook helper-VBA macro

Developing Outlook helper-C#

Developing Outlook helper – javascript for Office 365

Developing Outlook helper – conclusions

Develop like it was  200x:

Start  Visual Studio. See that you do not have the project. Download the Office addon for VS that create the project. Find the Outlook project – that is a wizard and let you have some choices . Give a name and wait for Visual Studio to load all files.

Those are the files generated by VS2013 ( differs from version to version)

app.config
Properties
Resources
ThisAddIn.cs
ThisAddIn.Designer.cs
ThisAddIn.Designer.xml
FindInEmail.cs
FindInEmail.Designer.cs
FindInEmail.resx
FindInEmailIn.csproj
FindInEmailIn.csproj.user
FindInEmailIn.sln
FindInEmailIn_TemporaryKey.pfx
FindSettings.cs
FindSettings.Designer.cs
FindSettings.resx
.vs\FindInEmailIn
.vs\FindInEmailIn\v14
Properties\AssemblyInfo.cs
Properties\Resources.Designer.cs
Properties\Resources.resx
Properties\Settings.Designer.cs
Properties\Settings.settings

After a while, you realize that you want a button in the ribbon.  You will find eventually the http://www.visualstudioextensibility.com/ site where Carlos Quintero maintains various blog posts about that and understand how to add the ribbon button and how to intercept clock event . Then you wrote more or less the same code as in part 2 :

var m = Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.ActiveInspector().CurrentItem;
MailItem mi = m as MailItem;
if (mi == null)
      return;
//C# same code as in http://msprogrammer.serviciipeweb.ro/2017/01/30/developing-an-outlook-helperpart-2-from-5vba/ 

Test like it was 200x:

Press F5 to run the project. Outlook starts and loads the plugin. So now there are 2 resource hogs on your system: Outlook + Visual Studio. Set break point in VS . Open the email. Find the ribbon in Outlook. Press the button and debug.

Deploy like it was 200x:

Create a VS Setup project and pray

1. user have the same .NET Framework version that you have developed with
2. user have the same  Outlook version that you have developed

( There are solution for 1 and 2 to be integrated – but it requires some programming / settings)

Series

Developing Outlook helper – introduction

Developing Outlook helper-VBA macro

Developing Outlook helper-C#

Developing Outlook helper – javascript for Office 365

Developing Outlook helper – conclusions

Develop like it was ‘9x:

In the early days to develop an outlook addon it was simple : Press ALT+F11 and wrote the VBA. ( in our days , you go to the outlook settings and enable macros)

The code will be something like this:

Public Sub IsUserInEmail()
    Dim current
    Set current = Application.ActiveInspector.CurrentItem
    
    If Not TypeOf current Is MailItem Then Exit Sub
    Dim m As MailItem
    Set m = current
    
    Dim name As String
    name = InputBox("Please give me the user name", "Find User")
    If (Len(name) = 0) Then Exit Sub
    
    
    If (InStr(1, m.To, name, vbTextCompare) > 0) Then
        MsgBox "The name " & name & " has received the email"
        Exit Sub
    End If
    If (InStr(1, m.Sender.name, name, vbTextCompare) > 0) Then
        MsgBox "The name " & name & " has received the email"
        Exit Sub
    End If
    Dim rec As Recipient
    For Each rec In m.Recipients
        If (InStr(1, rec.name, name, vbTextCompare) > 0) Then
            MsgBox "The name " & name & " has received the email"
            Exit Sub
        End If
    Next rec
    MsgBox "The name " & name & " has NOT received the email"
    
End Sub

Test like it was ‘9x:

If you want to test, open the email ( double click the email) . Then run with F5 and debug.

Deploy like it was ‘9x:

Send to the user the VBA script and tell him step by step how to copy / paste

Series

Developing Outlook helper – introduction

Developing Outlook helper-VBA macro

Developing Outlook helper-C#

Developing Outlook helper – javscript for Office 365

Developing Outlook helper – conclusions

I want to show how much the software have changed from the early days to now.

For this , I will show it was / is to develop / test / deploy a sample outlook macro/application that allows the user to find if a name is between the email addresses from an email ( in a international company this is rather a difficult task).

The part 2 will be implementation as  an Outlook VBA Macro

The part 3 will be a VS addon application

The part 4 will be a modern Javascript Office 365 application

In the part 5 I will put the conclusions – but I think that you have an idea about what I am talking.