CSS Corp Labs

Quick walkthrough on Re-enabling MS Office Add-ins

2012-01-22T00:07:00.000-08:00

- Mohankumar Deivasigamani

Hope my last two blogposts helped you to know more oncreating a MS Office add-in using .Net.

In some cases theAdd-ins might be disabled. The following link will help to know the types ofdisables and the way how we can re-enable those.

Re-enable anAdd-in That Has Been Disabled

Moreover there are fewthings to be checked out while Ms Office add-ins are not loaded.

Check list to be followed while MS Office add-ins are notgetting loaded

Step 1:Make sure LoadBehavior (DWORD) valueis 3, refer load behaviour key in below registry path HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Word\Addins\

YourApplication.Connect

Step 2:Check whether CodeBase is referredto your application Dynamic Link Library (dll)

Step 3:Make sure you specify mscoree.dll in youregistry entry. At the same time check whether mscoree.dll has registeredproperly in your machine Global Assembly Cache (GAC).

Step 4:As the last step, download appropriate Primary Interop Aassemblies (PIA)and install in your machine.

Step 5:Finally, fusion log will help developers to fix dll level issues.

Fusion Logs – Identifying Source of Assembly Load Failures

Fusion logs help inidentifying the source of failed assembly binds. Setting the following registryvalues will help to enable fusion logs:

Open regedit.exe and goto: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Fusion

Add the followingvalues:

DWORDForceLog set value to 1
DWORDLogFailures set value to 1
DWORDLogResourceBinds set value to 1
StringLogPath set value to C:\FusionLog\ - (Directory named C:\FusionLog should becreated and the last \ is important while writing in the registry).

If there is a “Could notload assembly” exception or if your office add-ins failed to load, openC:\FusionLog in the windows explorer. Open the folder named Default and thenthe folder whose name matches the application in question. If MS Word failed toload the add-ins, open the folder named WINWORD.exe to find a detaileddiagnostic report file.

Programmatically Garbage Collection - Generation

2012-01-10T07:37:00.000-08:00

- Suresh Pitchi

Hopemost of us know that what garbage collection is. But, how many peopleof us know how it works and how the CLR manage allocated classinstance via garbage collection?. First we will explainprogrammatically how garbage collection is implemented, usingSystem.GC class type are explained below and how object will bestored on Heap and Stack.

Objectstored in Heap and Stack.

Takethe example below, how the call reference from heap and stack

publicclassGenerationObectExample

{

publicintid { get;set;}

publicstringname { get;set;}

publicGenerationObectExample();

stringGeneationMethod()

{

return"Gereationobjection";

}

class garbage

{

void CallGarbageCollector()

{

Console.WriteLine(“printout generation”);

//Objectstored on the heap

GenerationObectExamplemyobject = new

GenerationObectExample();

//objectstored in reference

myobject.GeneationMethod();

}
}

Once the Class isdefined it can be allocated with any number of objects using C# newkeyword. The “new” keyword returns a reference to the object onthe heap not on the actual object. If we declare the local variablein the method, it will store in the stack. When we invoke the memberon the object using the C# dot or period operator, the reference arestored for the object. Structures are value type that are alwaysallocated on the stack and never place on the .NET managed heap. Heapare allocated only when you are creating instance of class.

ObjectLifetime.

In C# applicationwithin the .NET runtime environment it will take care of managed heapwithout direct intervention of it. Now we are going to know how theGarbage Collector destroys the object. Garbage collector removes theobject from heap, once it is unreachable by any part of code.

voidGenerationMethod()

{

//itwill distoryed when the method return the value

GenerationobjectmyObeject = new

Generationobject("genrationZero", "generationOne");

myObeject.GenerationMethod();

}

Take the aboveexample, when the method returns the value, the Garbage Collectorstart working to clear the object. But, how it will work. It is likeGeneration concept. The idea behind generation is simple. TheGeneration has three stages.

Generation 0, Generation 1, Generation 2.

Generation 0 :Identifies a new allocation object that is, when application createfresh object that are marked as Generation 0. In this stage GC clearthe object from heap.

Generation 1 :Identifies an object that has survived a garbage collection. In thisstage, GC that is not able to clear from Generation 0 will be movedto Generation 1.

Generation 2 :Identifies an object that has survived more than one sweep of thegarbage collection. In this stage, what exactly happen, when GCcannot clear object in generation 0 and 1, it move then gen2. GCspent more time on Generation 0 rather than Generation 1 and Generation2.

Here the exampleexplain how to generation move to stage by stage.
class GarbageCollection
{

static voidMain(string[]args)

{

//printout estimatied nunber of bytes on heap

Console.WriteLine("\nEstimatiednumber of bytes on heap : {0}",

GC.GetTotalMemory(false));

//MaxGeneration is zero based

Console.WriteLine("\nThisOS has {0} object generation.\n",

GC.MaxGeneration);

//printout generation of Generationobject class

GenerationobjectobjectGeneration=new

Generationobject("genrationZero","generationOne");

Console.WriteLine("\n",objectGeneration.ToString());

Console.WriteLine("\nPrintout GENERATION of Generationobject :

{0}",

GC.GetGeneration(objectGeneration));

//makethe ton of object is testing purpose

object[]tonsofObject=newobject[50000];

for(inti=0;i<50000;i++)

{

tonsofObject[i]=newobject();

}

//collectonly generation 0 object

GC.Collect(0,GCCollectionMode.Forced);

GC.WaitForPendingFinalizers();

//printout the generation of refer Generationobject class

Console.WriteLine("\nGENERATIONof refer Generationobject class

is : {0}",

GC.GetGeneration(objectGeneration));

//seethe tonofobject[9000] is still alive

if(tonsofObject[9000] != null)

{

Console.WriteLine("Seethe tonof object[9000] is still alive

:{0}",

GC.GetGeneration(tonsofObject[9000]));

}

else

{

Console.WriteLine("Tonofobject[9000]is no longer alive");

}

//printout how many time a generation has been swept

Console.WriteLine("\nGENERATION0 has been swept {0}

times",GC.CollectionCount(0));

Console.WriteLine("\nGENERATION1 has been swept {0}

times",GC.CollectionCount(1));

Console.WriteLine("\nGENERATION2 has been swept {0}

times",GC.CollectionCount(2));

Console.ReadLine();

}
}

Output :

The above example explain how to sweep the generation from onestage to another stage of Generationobject class. The GC swept two time from Generation 0 and one time fromGeneration 1.

So here this is some basic understanding know of how the Garbage collection works internally from the .NET perspective.

Consumption of WCF Service during development

2011-12-30T05:27:00.000-08:00

-Balaji Ramasamy

As Iwas working on project, it demanded to run the WCF service duringdevelopment which was a challenging task for a novice developer. Wesuccessfully developed the WCF service by implementing the servicecontract interface & service behavior class. The above developedWCF service needs to be consumed by the client application, whichwill interact with the end point of the services and provides therequested response. To successfully build and test the application,the WCF service needs to be exposed, which will be consumed by clientapplication with the help of svcutil tool. Since the WCF service is aclass library, we can’t run it as service.

Sohere comes the question of how to run the WCF service to generate andconsume the service proxy in my client windows application duringdevelopment. We are very much aware of hosting the service via theconsole application, winforms application, windows service, IIS, WASto host the WCF service. Initially we ran the WCF service as windowsservice, assuming it as a right decision, which resulted in multipleinstallation and un-installation of windows service. To avoid suchpainful process during development, we planned to run the WCF servicein console application. But how to run in console application? Herecomes the ServiceHost runtime, which will enable to the WCF serviceto load the service class, set up the endpoints and channellisteners, which provides your service class an “ecosystem” tolive and operate in.

Youcan either instantiate a ServiceHost class yourself in a console app,a Windows service, or even a Winforms app, and thus make your WCFservice class available to the outside world - or you can delegatethat work to IIS or WAS. Even IIS or WAS will use a ServiceHost tohost your WCF service - they just do it automatically behind thescenes.

Thefollowing is the console application code to run the WCF service

internalclassProgram

{

privatestaticvoidMain(string[]args)

{

try

{

StartService();

Console.WriteLine("Serviceis running...");

Console.WriteLine("Presskey to end...");

Console.ReadLine();

StopService();

}

catch(Exceptionex)

{

//Logthe Exception

}

internalstaticServiceHostmyServiceHost = null;

internalstaticvoidStartService()

{

try

{

myServiceHost= newServiceHost(typeof([namespaceName.ServiceBehaviourClassName]));

myServiceHost.Open();

}

catch(Exceptionex)

{

//Logthe Exception

}

internalstaticvoidStopService()

{

try

{

if(myServiceHost.State != CommunicationState.Closed)

myServiceHost.Close();

}

catch(Exceptionex)

{

//Logthe Exception

}

And the Applicationconfiguration includes be the following

<system.serviceModel>

<servicename="[namespaceName.ServiceBehaviourClassName]"

behaviorConfiguration="metadataSupport">

<host>

<addbaseAddress="[EndPointAddress]"/>

</baseAddresses>

</host>

<endpointaddress=""binding="[BindingName]"

contract="[namespaceName.ServiceContractName]""/>

<endpointaddress="mex"binding="mexNamedPipeBinding"

contract="IMetadataExchange"/>

</service>

</services>

<behaviorname="metadataSupport">

<serviceDebugincludeExceptionDetailInFaults="true"/>

</behavior>

</serviceBehaviors>

</behaviors>

</system.serviceModel>

Note: ApplicationConfiguration may vary from one binding to another binding. Pleasecheck Microsoft MSDN site for more details about bindings and itsrelated configuration

Now run the service andits ready to consume in the client application during developmentstage of our application

References:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb332338.aspx

Integrate Microsoft Lync 2010 to your .Net Application

2011-12-21T21:59:00.000-08:00

- Mohankumar Deivasigamani

Thispost focus on the process to integrate Microsoft Lync 2010 to your.Net application.

MicrosoftLyncis an instantmessaging clients. It is a replacement for WindowsMessenger and has added feature set that is mainly targetedtowards corporate environments.

Note:For this tutorial I assume that you have Lync 2010 running on your machine. Also your machine has Visual Studio 2010.

Sohere we go with the steps for integration

Step 1: Download and install Lync SDK 2010 (free) on your machine.

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=18898

Step 2: Open Visual Studio 2010 and create a “New Project”. Select a “WPF Application” template for this project.

Step3: Lync SDK controls will be available in "Tool box", Youcan drag the control to your form. For example here I am using fewcontroller like “MyPresenceChooser”, ContactSearch &ContactSearchResultList.

Step4: Test your application by clicking “Run” from your VisualStudio. The output appears as below, where you see the Lync 2010gets integrated to your application.

Tomake it more effective here below i am comparing the output of theapplication to the Lync 2010 installed in your machine.

Sothats it for the basic integration and now you can start customizing andadding more stuffs with your code.

Azure - BLOB Storage

2011-12-09T21:19:00.001-08:00

-Balaji Ramasamy

WindowsAzure offers four core storage services namely Blob, Table, Queue andDrive, which are accessible via multiple instances / applicationssimultaneously representing a dedicated storage instead of temporarystorage. The simplest way to store with Windows Azure is Binary LargeObject (BLOB) Service. In this blog, I provide highlights of storageservices offered by MS Azure and compared the same with AWSS3 (Simple Storage Service) that enables you to storedata in the AWS cloud.

We canstore the files in three ways. The file size with 64MB or lesser sizecan be uploaded as a single BLOB. If the file size exceeds 64MB thenwe can go for BLOCK Blob or PAGE Blob.

TheBLOCK Blob supports 200GB of total file size and each blockshould be maximum of 4MB and its identified by BlockID which isunique within the Blob. Block ID is Base64 encoded string of samelength and its values can be duplicated in different blobs.

Whenusing base-64 encoding, the pre-encoded string must be 64 bytes orless. The maximum of 50,000 blocks is allowed for each blob. Themaximum of 1,00,000 uncommitted blocks is allowed, its total sizeshould be 400GB and finally the uncommitted blocks will be garbagecollected after a week. We have to call PutBlockList to commit theuploaded blocks.

ThePAGE Blob supports 1TB of total size and each page should bemaximum of 4MB and its collection of 512-bytes. To create a pageblob, initialize the page blob and specify the maximum size. Writesto page blobs happens in-place and are immediately committed to theblob. It’s optimized for random read and writes operation.

BLOB Storage LocalTesting

Local Storage is provided by Windows Azure to test cloud storage with help of Storage Emulator.
Blobs in the Windows Azure storage emulator are limited to 2 GB.
When making a request against the local storage service, specify the local hostname and Blob service port as 127.0.0.1:10000, followed by the local storage account name

Thefollowing is a comparison of Amazon Simple Storage Service and AzureBLOB Storage.

AMAZON Simple Storage Service	AZURE BLOB Storage
User Subscription
Single Account	Multiple Accounts
Security Keys
Two set of acceskey and secret key	Account name with Primary Access Key / Secondary Access Key
Authentication
With Acceskey and Secretkey	With Account name and Primary Access Key or Secondary Access Key
Domain Name
Bucket Name and its unique	Account Name and its unique
Contents are categorized by
Bucket	Container
Size Limitations on Storage
No size limit on storage	100TB storage size per account
Size Limitations on File-Size
Up to 5GB in a single PUT Up to 5 TB using multipart upload	Up to 64MB for single Blob. Up to 200GB for Block Blobs Up to 1TB for Page Blobs
Specifying API Version in Request Header
N/A	x-ms-version http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/dd894041.aspx
Offline Testing
N/A	Local Storage is provided by Windows Azure to test cloud storage with help of Storage Emulator.
Versioning
Enable/Disable/Suspend versioning at Bucket Level	Provided Snapshot functionality for object(s).
Logging
Bucket Level Logging No size limitations. Logs stored in configured Bucket and Prefix	Service(Blob, Table, Queue) Level Logging for storage account's 20TB size limitations other than 100TB storage size. Log data is stored as block blobs in a container called $logs in the blob namespace of your account Logs can be accessed thru $logs container using http://<accountname>.blob.core.windows.net/$logs Log name under the $logs container will have the following format: <service name>/YYYY/MM/DD/hhmm/<Counter>.log Reference: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazurestorage/archive/ 2011/08/03/windows-azure-storage-logging-using-logs-to-track-storage-requests.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh343270.aspx

LIST API Comparison

	Amazon		Azure
	LIST Bucket		LIST Container
	Name	Description	Name	Description
Prefix	Prefix	Keys that begin with the indicated prefix.	prefix	Filters the results to return only blobs whose names begin with the specified prefix.
Marker	Marker	Indicates where in the bucket to begin listing.	Marker	Indicates where in the bucket to begin listing.
No.of Records	MaxKeys	1000	maxresults	5000
Next- Marker	NextMarker	NextMarker element has a value only if the list results are not complete.	NextMarker	NextMarker element has a value only if the list results are not complete.
To dentify list complete or not	IsTruncated	Specifies whether (true) or not (false) all of the results were returned. All of the results may not be returned if the number of results exceeds that specified by MaxKeys.	N/A	N/A
Delimiter	Delimiter	Causes keys that contain the same string between the prefix and the first occurrence of the delimiter to be rolled up into a single result element in the Common- Prefixes collection.	delimiter	When the request includes this parameter, the operation returns a BlobPrefix element in the response body that acts as a placeholder for all blobs whose names begin with the same substring up to the appearance of the delimiter character. The delimiter may be a single character or a string.
Folders	Common-Prefixes		BlobPrefix
FileName	Key	The object's key.	Name	name of the object
Size	Size	Size in bytes of the object.	Content-Length / Size	Size in bytes of the object.
Metadata	N/A	N/A	include	snapshots,metadata, uncommittedblobs
ETag	ETag	MD5 hash of the object. The ETag only reflects changes to the contents of an object, not its metadata.	Etag	identifier
Content Type	N/A	N/A	Content-Type	blob-content-type
Modified Date	LastModified	Date and time the object was last modified.	Last-Modified /LastModified	date-time-value

Hope this post helped you to understand Azure BLOB Storage.

Adding custom Ribbon menu in MS Office using C#

2011-11-23T06:48:00.001-08:00

- Mohankumar Devasigamani

Hope readers mighthave gone through my previous post which helps you to better understand on how to create MS Office add-ins.

Note: As permy previous blog post, I sticked on MS Visual Studio 2010 & MSOffice 2010.

Creating theadd-in project
Click here to refer my pervious blog post.

Adding Referenceto the project

Open MS Office add-in project (CSSSampleAddin)
Right-click on Reference folder in add-in project ->Go to Add Reference
Add Reference window will appear.

Click COM tab. Select Microsoft Office 14.0 Object Library, Microsoft Office Core and then click OK

Creating theRibbon menu Customization XML File

Right-click onproject -> Add -> New Item
Select XML file andname it as RibbonMenu.xml ->Click Add
Edit and add thebelow XML content to the XML file.

<?xmlversion="1.0"encoding="utf-8"?>

<customUIxmlns=http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2006/01/customui loadImage="GetImage">

<tabs>

<tabid="tab1"label="CSSCorp Demo">

<groupid="group1"label="CSSGroup">

<menuid="menu1"label="DropDown"itemSize="large"

getScreentip="GetScreenTip"supertip="Thisis a super tip

forthe menu."image="star">

<buttonid="uxSearchButton"image="search"

getDescription="GetDescription"

</menu>

</group>

</tab>

</tabs>

</ribbon>

</customUI>

Save the file.

Set theRibbonMenu.xml as embedded resource

Right-click on theRibbonMenu.xml file -> Properties
Change Build Actionproperty to Embedded Resource
Go to CSSSampleAddinproject properties -> Select Resourcetab
Select file option,and drag and drop the xml file -> Savethe properties

Start writing thecode

Open Connect.cs andadd below lines in top of the class file

usingMicrosoft.Office.Core;

usingWord = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word;

Create instance ofWord and implement the IRibbonExtensibilityinterface.Edit / Modify the existing code as below

privateWord.ApplicationapplicationObject;

Edit /Modify thefirst line of OnConnection() method as below

applicationObject= (Word.Application)application;

Inherited theIRibbonExtensibilityin Connect class

publicclassConnect: Object,Extensibility.IDTExtensibility2,IRibbonExtensibility

Right-click onimplemented interface and click Implement Interface, and then clickImplement Interface Explicitly that will addIRibbonExtensibility.GetCustomUImethod. Add the below line GetCustimUI method.

returnProperties.Resources.Ribbon;

Now almost your demo add-in is ready for test. Before testing add the image for customribbon menu.

Adding your ownimage file

Right-click onproject -> Add -> New Item
Select Bitmap file ->Browse your image -> Click Add
To embed the image,please follow the same steps that we did for XML file.

For example here i have added two images named search and star. You can see those two images below .

Add the belowmethod in connect class

publicIPictureDispGetImage(stringimageName)

{

IPictureDispdispImage = null;

switch(imageName)

{

case"search":

dispImage= PictureConverter.ImageToPictureDisp

(Properties.Resources.search);

break;

case"star":

dispImage= PictureConverter.ImageToPictureDisp

(Properties.Resources.star);

break;

}

returndispImage;

}

Include the belowclass in the same file.

internalclassPictureConverter: AxHost

{

privatePictureConverter() : base(String.Empty){ }

staticpublicIPictureDispImageToPictureDisp(Imageimage)

{

return(IPictureDisp)GetIPictureDispFromPicture(image);

}

staticpublicIPictureDispIconToPictureDisp(Iconicon)

{

returnImageToPictureDisp(icon.ToBitmap());

}

staticpublicImagePictureDispToImage(IPictureDisppicture)

{

returnGetPictureFromIPicture(picture);

}

GetImagemethod will be already referred from RibbonMenu.xml file.

Right time to testdemo project. Build the CSSSampleAddin project. Go to projectproperties  Select Debug and setStart external program to Word,

by default word exe located in C:\ProgramFiles\Microsoft Office\Office14\WINWORD.EXE

Run the add-inproject, you will be able to see the customized Ribbon menu.

Write the methodto handle click event of Search button.

publicvoidSearch(Microsoft.Office.Core.IRibbonControlcontrol)

{

MessageBox.Show("Userhas clicked Search button.","CSSCorp Demo");

}

I hope this post helped you to know how ribbon menu can be added to Microsoft Word. Similarly the same process can be used to add ribbon menu to any of the Microsoft Word Office tools (Excel,Access etc.) As I mentionedin my previous blog. In Further you can setup project to create msi/exe which will help you to create add-in in other machine.

Note: Await and stay tuned for my next post "List to be checked out while MS Office add-ins are not getting loaded".

Create your own MS Office add-ins using .Net

2011-11-15T21:12:00.001-08:00

-Mohankumar Deivasigamani

Introduction

HereI am sharing the steps that will guide you to create a simple MSOffice add-in using Microsoft Visual Studio. For further explanationlets take Visual Studio 2010 and MS Office 2010.

Prerequisites

Youmust have the following items to be installed

MS Visual Studio 2010 (You can also use 2005 / 2008)
Microsoft .Net Framework 3 (minimum 2.0 up to 4.5)
Office PIA (Primary Interop Assemblies)

Startcreating add-ins

Open MS Visual Studio 2010 > Select New Project > Other Project Types > Extensibility

Now choose Shared Add-in project Template as shown above.
Enter the project name and solution name in the appropriate fields and click ok.

ConfigurationWizard

Wizardscreen will guide you following steps

Press Next in the welcome add-in wizard
Select the programming Language which you want to develop. (C#)
Select the application host (Word / Visio / Publisher / Project / Power Point /Outlook / Info Page /Excel /Access)
Enter name and description of your add-in
Choose Add-in option
Click the finish button to create new MS Office add-in and setup project for selected host application.

Projects created

Twoprojects will be created automatically as follows

Add-in project (CSSSampleAddin)
Setup project (CSSSampleAddinSeup)

Add-ingets installed, which is highlighted in the screen displayed below.

Nowyou can start writing your code to build add-in menu in OnConnection() method of Connect.cs class file. Furtheryou can setup project to create msi /exe which will help you tocreate add-in other machine.

Note:Await for my next post which will help you to create Ribbon menu inMS Office Word