VSTO Outlook Ribbon not showing when user replies in popin mode

Question

We build a VSTO Outlook Ribbon to save new mails send with Outlook. The RibbonType - Micorosft.Outlook.Mail.Compose

This works well until a user replies to a mail message in popin mode. The Ribbon is not shown.

How can i solve this?

Answer 1

Looks like you need to customize a contextual tab for the Outlook inline response in Explorer windows.

Unfortunately the Ribbon designer from VSTO doesn't provide anything for contextual tabs. So, you need to use Ribbon XML for that. See Walkthrough: Creating a Custom Tab by Using Ribbon XML for more information.

Note, you can export an existing UI to XML and continue working with ribbon XML only. See How to: Export a Ribbon from the Ribbon Designer to Ribbon XML.

The following articles explains everything for dealing with contextual tabs:

• OfficeTalk: Display and Hide Tabs, Groups, and Controls on the Microsoft Office Ribbon User Interface (Part 1 of 2)
• OfficeTalk: Display and Hide Tabs, Groups, and Controls on the Microsoft Office Ribbon User Interface (Part 2 of 2)

You can find built-in control IDs in the following documents:

• Office 2013 Help Files: Office Fluent User Interface Control Identifiers
• Office 2016 Help Files: Office Fluent User Interface Control Identifiers

Essentially, you need to specify the following part inside the ribbon tag:

   <contextualTabs>
       <tabSet idMso="TabComposeTools">
            <tab idMso="TabMessage">
                <!-- your controls goes there -->
            </tab>
       </tabSet>
   </contextualTabs>

Read more about the Fluent UI (aka Ribbon UI) in the following series of articles:

• Customizing the 2007 Office Fluent Ribbon for Developers (Part 1 of 3)
• Customizing the 2007 Office Fluent Ribbon for Developers (Part 2 of 3)
• Customizing the 2007 Office Fluent Ribbon for Developers (Part 3 of 3)

Answer 2

Do you mean inline response? Besides Microsoft.Outlook.Mail.Compose, you need to handle Microsoft.Outlook.Explorer and handle the TabComposeTools tab:

<customUI xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2009/07/customui" onLoad="OnLoadExplorerRibbon">
                <ribbon>
                  <contextualTabs>
                    <tabSet idMso="TabComposeTools">
                      <tab idMso="TabMessage">
                        <group ...