Joe Stegman - Building Outlook UI in 100 lines of code with Winforms

In the video it mentioned the sample code would be available for download. I cannot find anywhere here or on windowsforms.net

Same here. Could you please post the custom controls?

Thanks.

An email to Joe is on its way.

So when are we going to see a video with the Office team? *hint hint*

I don't know many people over on the Office team. I'll try again.

Chris Pratley of OneNote is signed up for a demo in the future.

I for one would LOVE to see some stuff from Chris Pratley, I've read his blog and he really, really knows his stuff.

Again, this is cool. We need sampled code......

Related topic: Why is the toolstrip support so simplistic in WinForms 2.0? And why are there no docking windows? All that stuff is available full-featured in WTL, but not WinForms 2.0.

I'm currently using SandBar and SandDock from divil.co.uk, but I'd rather have WinForms supply the same controls as WTL does.

I'd argue that the 2003 version has a nicer interface, but I'm biased (and this screenshot is just one dialog of three.)  Besides, the Type Key stuff allows you to try and remap keys that might not be on the 2003 version of the on-screen keyboard, like media keys and the like.  Just an alternate approach

Otherwise, you could also edit the Registry directly - for me, it was more about exposing the Windows functionality (and avoid physically popping off the cAPS lOCK key from my keyboards.)

Why no docking windows in Whidbey?

Besides being very costly (consider displacing several other features) docking windows requests are more varied than you might think. We did get a lot of feedback to support docking windows, but we also got feedback (primarily from line of business developers) that docking windows were complicated, hard to support (user), and most users just wanted the look rather than full docking window functionality.

With the combinations of SplitContainers and the drag-to-dock ToolStrip stuff, we felt like the lion's share of the advanced UI needs were addressed. 

Now combine this with a SmartClient-scenario where the WinForm-app is started using a href/exe. What would be the reason of using a browser-based application anymore?

>Besides being very costly (consider displacing several other features)
Surely if Tim Dawson can develop something as neat as SandDock  in his spare time, someone on the SWF team could throw something equivalent together?

>docking windows requests are more varied than you might think.
Surely that's not a reason to leave them out altogether - just make them more flexible!

Very cool.  Thank you for that.  Could you drill down with another video on creating the treeview container control and things like populating and design patterns for easily adding context menus to nodes and how to hookup context menu action items to code and make all this logical in your program.  Thanks again!
--william stacey, mvp

I too am anxious to see the sample code for this demo.

Michael.

I think today qualifies as the end of the month.  Is someone still planning on releasing the sample code for this demo on www.windowsforms.net?

Thanks!

Tom Servo wrote:

Related topic: Why is the toolstrip support so simplistic in WinForms 2.0? And why are there no docking windows? All that stuff is available full-featured in WTL, but not WinForms 2.0.

I'm currently using SandBar and SandDock from divil.co.uk, but I'd rather have WinForms supply the same controls as WTL does.

This article on Codeproject dicusses several ways to achieve docking windows. Even in Winforms/Framework 1.1. So it IS possible. Although rather complex.

Joe Stegman wrote:

We are planning on posting a Beta 1 version of the Outlook UI sample to http://www.windowsforms.net at the end of this month.

I can't find the sample on windowsforms. Have I overlooked it?

Thanks,
Peter

Not to hold folks to dates, but I don't see it yet??
When you do post it, maybe post in parallel with a new Channel9 video talking more detail stuff with the controls, treeview, patterns, etc.  Cheers
--
William, MVP

Joe apologizes for the delay, but says they are coming soon.

Hey I could have sworn that I read next week before!
You know Soon(tm) is trademarked allready by MatroxUsers and we all know about the impact of that word;-)

Ok, looking forward to it Soon(tm).
Have a nice weekend,
Peter

Is anyone really going to post the source code for this on WindowsForms.NET?

I find this all to familiar; Mark Boulter promised the source code to a sample Smart Client app in a previous .NET show and it never surfaced.  Kinda ironic, seeing as how he is on the WindowsForms.NET home page

JT

Yes - http://www.windowsforms.net/Default.aspx?tabindex=4&tabid=49#Whidbey%20Beta%201

ooooooooooooooo!!! *drools*

Thanks soo much for this code!  For a while there people were starting to get vicious about not getting their code fix.  I am also drooling.  Thanks Joe and Scoble.

Thanks for the update!

I think I was one of those that weighed in with the "Show me the code" chant. So many thanks for this.

Pretty nice demo
we have a challenge that we should drag that MSN Clone he made and drop it in the Outlook and let it dock there...
any hints please ?

out of date now

Will there be any chance of an update to Beta 2 for this demo app?

Has anyone been able to make the Outlook Clone UI work under Beta 2?

I'm about to start.  Also, what is "OLAF"?

Michael.

Re: OLAF

As I watch the VS 2005 demo, OLAF appears to be the name of the solution.

OLAF = "Outlook Look And Feel"

I've gotten OLAF to compile and run with VS2005 Beta 2.

The 2 key changes are to comment out the offending ComponentModel using statment and change IPropertyChange to INotifyPropertyChanged.

On recompiling, you get about 15 errors and 213 warnings.  Focus on the errors (sort by Category in the Error list).  I brute force fixed most of the errors by commenting out any property initialization for properties that no longer exist in Beta 2.  For the InterfaceType errors, it's a simple rename to NetworkInterface* (check intellisense).

I may have broke a bunch of UI events, etc. but the app does run and display the main window.

The 213 errors are about deprecated features from Beta 1 to Beta 2.  I'm not going to touch these (and didn't need to to get the UI to display).  Most appear to be in the mail message/store code ...so if you just want the Office/Outlook UI and don't need the mail/message/store implementation, dump it first and then see what kinds of warnings remain.

Thanks for the pointers, I managed to get the code running under Beta 2 in 15 minutes.

could you post your code somewhere?

Go on Michael post your code, you did it first and you look like you can take the bandwidth.

Have you (anyone) been able to get it working with the RTM version?

does any one know about a similar thing but in visual basic?

Is there VB.Net version for this code?