MsgDump2000

I've been maintaining a C++ COM Add-In sample for Outlook 2000/XP/2003 for a while. Since quite a few people have asked for samples better than the one Microsoft provides, I'm making mine public. I use it mostly as a "test bed" to play with various functional areas.

MsgDump2000 illustrates a couple of basic concepts that others may find helpful:

• How to create a basic "stub" add-in
• How to add menu items, and handlers for them
• How to add a toolbar button to a message
• How to add an Inspector handler, specifically for MailItems
• How to monitor events on MailItems
• How to monitor events on a Folder and on the Application
• How to process your selection list, performing actions on selected items
• How to extract information about individual MailItems, including information only accessible via MAPI.

This uses "straight" C++ (VS.NET 2003), no ATL, MFC or other external libraries (other than the #import DLLs from Office). My theory is that by showing "raw" code, it's a bit easier to figure out what's going on behind the scenes. Consult ReleaseNotes.html within the Zip for more details.

New for 2.10.03, an additional COM server built using ATL is provided. The "raw C++" add-in uses standard COM methods to call into this COM module, illustrating how you can use MFC, ATL, VB or any COM-compliant module from within a plain add-in without having to add all the baggage to the add-in itself.

New Release 2.10.03 - 16 February 2005.

Click here to download.

Comments or suggestions for improvement welcome. Send me E-mail.

Blanket permission granted to distribute and/or "advertise" this sample, provided it's left intact. If you fix any bugs, or make any improvements, please let me know so that I can keep my "master" updated.