How to get started?

[Jeremy]

I wrote an extension for thunderbird, which was pretty easy. Now I want
to reproduce similar functionality in Outlook 2003, but I don't even
know where to get started. There's very little information on what I
need to do, and it's all pretty complex.

I have Visual Studio .NET 2003, and I managed to create an Add-in
project for outlook, but I've no idea where to proceed from there (The
project I created uses C#, but I could go with C++ or even VB if that's
easier).

I just need to add a button and some dropdown lists to the toolbar of
the compose window. The dropdown lists populate using data from the
web, and the button, when clicked, adds some text to the body of the
message based on the values of the dropdown lists and adds a recipient
to the recipient list.

So my questions are
1) Is this possible (grabbing data from the web)
2) Are there any docs that can help me get started with this? Something
from a beginner's perspective, perhaps?

Thanks,
Jeremy

 

[Eugene E. Starostin]

Hello Jeremy,

Please have a look at http://www.add-in-express.com

Our product will help you to start more faster than the built-in VS
solution.


Regards from Belarus,
Eugene E. Starostin

 

[Thaddaeus Parker]

Jeremy:

2) Are there any docs that can help me get started with this? Something
from a beginner's perspective, perhaps?

A couple of good places to start are www.outlookcode.com and www.x4u.de.

So my questions are
1) Is this possible (grabbing data from the web)

Yes, you can grab information from the web using webservices. This is
relatively easy and there are plenty of snippets out there that can help.

regards,
Thaddaeus.