TPN :: The Microsoft Developer Show

Cypress goes into Beta

Nick — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 20:56:17 +0000

As I mentioned on my blog, a beta release of Cypress (or more correctly VSTO 2005 SE) is available for download Here. It was of course a mere coincidence that we have just posted the show on Building Applications that Integrate with Office.

ARCast talks it up with Excel Services

Nick — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 04:39:24 +0000

In the most recent ARCast, Ron Jacobs chats with Jay Paulus from the Office 2007 team about some of the cool new features in Office 2007. One of the features that grabbed me were the Excel Services. Not only can you host an Excel spreadsheet on a server for multiple people to access, there is built in support for both publishing sections (named ranges, pages etc) of the spreadsheet (including specifying parameters as inputs for calculations) and using a webservice interface for running calculations.

Initially the whole concept of server mounted spreadsheets struck me as “why would anyone want to do that?” but the reality is that spreadsheet are incredibly powerful at what they do. Well, at least the engine that powers the spreadsheet is powerful. Although modern, OO programming languages are great for building usable applications, they are not particularly good for writing applications that are data intensive or do sophisticated calculations. On the flip side, Excel is not a great tool for building robust distributable applications (see my post on my honours project re spreadsheet testing). It would be great if we could combine them, which is where the power of Excel Services comes in. In the same way as we always try to decouple user interface design from business logic, now we can detach the calculation engine, using the webservices interface to initiate calculations on the server.

Microsoft Developer Show #07 - Building Applications that Integrate with Office

Nick — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 03:49:29 +0000

As we progress towards the looming end of yet another year it is time to get excited. While the end of the year is usually a festive season regardless, this year with the imminent launch of Vista and Office 2007 we, as developers, have another reason to celebrate. In this show I catch up with fellow Australian, Andrew Coates, and Paul Stubbs to discuss the ins and outs of building applications that integrate with the Office platform.

And the show goes a little bit like this….[Listen to the Podcast]

[Opening music - big thanks to the guys of Minder for the use of their track Chess which can be sampled at TripleJ]

00:10 - Introduction with Paul Stubbs and Andrew Coates
00:33 - Intilecta
01:21 - VSTO v1,2, Cypress & 3
02:37 - Legacy technologies (VB6, VBA, COM)
04:16 - The benefits of managed code (Web services, CAS, Code Separation)
04:50 - Limitations of VSTO (eg calling Excel User Defined Functions)
07:00 - Document v’s Application projects
09:10 - Runtime requirements for VSTO (.NET Framework, Office PIAs & CAS setup)
10:10 - PSS Client Troubleshooter
12:58 - Current ISV activity with Office/VSTO
15:09 - TFS Office integration
18:45 - Outlook forms & custom task pane
19:32 - Information Bridge Framework
20:20 - Ribbon toolbar and VSTO version compatibility
23:10 - Visual Studio Tools for Applications
26:16 - Getting started with VSTO and Office development
27:50 - Community launch event for Vista/Office
28:31 - Blogs: Paul, Andrew, VSTO
28:44 - MSDN Magazine article, VSTO for Mere Mortals
29:25 - MAGE

Listen to the show HERE