I suggest you try a very, very simple custom task pane first to see if this works. I put together the most simple example I could think of, basically a single text box that gets a value pushed into it and this is returned to the ribbon when a button is pushed.
If you were to try this then I would do it as a new solution. Create a new VSTO project with a "Designer mode" ribbon. Add a toggle button and a normal button below it. Then copy in this code:
ThisAddIn.cs
using System;
using Office = Microsoft.Office.Core;
namespace ExcelAddIn1
{
public partial class ThisAddIn
{
private Microsoft.Office.Tools.CustomTaskPane pane;
private CellTaskPane ctrl = new CellTaskPane();
private void ThisAddIn_Startup(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
pane = CustomTaskPanes.Add(ctrl, "Custom Sheet");
pane.DockPosition = Office.MsoCTPDockPosition.msoCTPDockPositionRight;
pane.DockPositionRestrict = Office.MsoCTPDockPositionRestrict.msoCTPDockPositionRestrictNoChange;
pane.Visible = true;
pane.VisibleChanged += new EventHandler(taskPaneValue_VisibleChanged);
ctrl.SetName("test");
}
private void taskPaneValue_VisibleChanged(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
Globals.Ribbons.Ribbon1.toggleButton1.Checked = pane.Visible;
}
public Microsoft.Office.Tools.CustomTaskPane TaskPane
{
get
{
return pane;
}
}
public CellTaskPane MyContainer
{
get
{
return ctrl;
}
}
private void ThisAddIn_Shutdown(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
}
#region VSTO generated code
/// <summary>
/// Required method for Designer support - do not modify
/// the contents of this method with the code editor.
/// </summary>
private void InternalStartup()
{
this.Startup += new System.EventHandler(ThisAddIn_Startup);
this.Shutdown += new System.EventHandler(ThisAddIn_Shutdown);
}
#endregion
}
}
Add a new class called CellTaskPane.cs:
using System;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Drawing;
using System.ComponentModel;
namespace ExcelAddIn1
{
public class CellTaskPane : System.Windows.Forms.UserControl
{
public System.Windows.Forms.TextBox test;
public CellTaskPane()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
public void InitializeComponent()
{
test = new System.Windows.Forms.TextBox();
test.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(120, 8);
test.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(232, 20);
test.TabIndex = 0;
Controls.AddRange(new System.Windows.Forms.Control[] { test });
Size = new System.Drawing.Size(375, 150);
}
public void SetName(string text)
{
test.Text = text;
}
public string GetName()
{
return test.Text;
}
}
}
Add the following code to Ribbon1.cs:
using System;
using Microsoft.Office.Tools.Ribbon;
namespace ExcelAddIn1
{
public partial class Ribbon1
{
private void toggleButton1_Click(object sender, RibbonControlEventArgs e)
{
Globals.ThisAddIn.TaskPane.Visible = ((RibbonToggleButton)sender).Checked;
}
private void button1_Click(object sender, RibbonControlEventArgs e)
{
button1.Label = Globals.ThisAddIn.MyContainer.GetName();
}
}
}
Obviously you will need to do a little tweaking to get this to work, I tried to take the default names for a new project and the buttons.
When you run this you should get a custom task pane. When you switch to the "TabAddIn" and click the toggle button it should show/ hide the task pane. When you click the normal button the contents of the only field in the task pane should be copied as the button name. I defaulted this to "test", so even if the task pane isn't visible you can see if it is in memory or not?
I tested this and it appears to work fine. Basically this is just a hacked up version of the examples on MSDN. If you wanted you could probably do this yourself anyway? If nothing else this will enable you to see if there is anything in the more complex ribbon you are working on that causes issues... or if this is a fundamental problem with your colleague's machine.
