About the book

Written by: Ken Slovak
Pages: 454
Publisher: Wrox
ISBN-10: 0470049944
ISBN-13: 978-0470049945

Working with Office product's API's can be a daunting task for several reasons.  First, the API isn't always fully documented, and there can be a lot of gotchas for developers to find as they build an add-in for this popular software product.  The author of Professional Outlook 2007 by Wrox has a lot of experience working with the Outlook API, as it's clearly visible with his writing style.  He has a lot of knowledge that any Outlook developer needs to finish the job, plus includes several examples on each topic and includes his own helper code to work with the API.

Professional Outlook 2007 covers the several options for deploying add-ins.  It starts out by walking through the creation of a macro using VBA.  Macro's can be setup by using the inline macro designer by selecting the Tools > Forms > Design a Form.  The designer support allows a developer to drag/drop fields onto the form and create a customized interface.  Ken also discusses the options related to using Outlook Form Regions, a new feature only available in Outlook 2007.  A form region embeds an icon in the Office ribbon so the user can activate the region (for certain region settings).  While this is a nice option and separates the add-in from the actual form, the challenges are backward compatibility (as this feature isn't in Outlook 2003The book covers as many possible development options as there are with Office 2007, which are macros, COM add-ins, and VSTO, and across the various syntaxes and query mechanisms (like DASL) that are available.

Ken's book is filled with the gotchas of Outlook development that every developer has to be aware of (sometimes I debated as to whether the Outlook integration was even worth the hassle because of some of the many problems like random crashing, security issues, etc.). He includes an entire chapter focused on the idea of real-world programming with Outlook 2007.

I think Ken does a good job of getting his point across, but in some areas the subject can come off dry; he includes his own personal source code that he reuses across projects. While helpful, I felt it was a distraction from the book a little bit. But overall, the book was great and I'd recommend it personally. Like all good books, this book wrapped up with a sample program that's always beneficial.

About Brian Mains

Brian Mains is an application developer consultant with Computer Aid Inc. He formerly worked with the Department of Public Welfare. In both places of business, he developed both windows and web applications, small and large, using the latest .NET technologies. In addition, he had spent many hou... This author has published 73 articles on DotNetSlackers. View other articles or the complete profile here.