Programatically added context menus to Word VSTO add-in in a loop causing problems

Question

I followed the steps of creating a VSTO addin from these two articles:

I didn't use Ribbon Xml, rather, I used the Visual Designer (and added ribbon event handler code simply by double clicking the event handler property in the designer - which added the code to the *.designer.cs file instead of Ribbon_Load event like article suggested).

Maybe I have to start over and use Xml instead, but I'm trying to add a menu item to various context menus in Word where I want one of my ribbon functions available.

Based on this article, I created a List<Office.CommandBarButton> contextMenus = new List<Office.CommandBarButton>(); to hold a reference to each button I create so that subsequent clicks worked after the initial run.

private void insertDocGenContext_Click( Office.CommandBarButton Ctrl, ref bool CancelDefault )
{
    System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine( "Click triggered on " + Ctrl.accName );
    var ribbon = Globals.Ribbons.GetRibbon<Ribbon>();
    ribbon.configInsert_Click( null, null );
}

private void ThisAddIn_Startup(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
    var targetMenus = new[] { "Form Fields", "Text", "Headings", "Fields", "Lists", "Table Lists", "Table Cells", "Table Text", "Table Headings" };
    var commandBars =
        Application.CommandBars.OfType<Office.CommandBar>()
            .Where( cb => cb.Position == Office.MsoBarPosition.msoBarPopup && targetMenus.Contains( cb.Name ) )
            .ToArray();

    foreach ( var cb in commandBars )
    {
        // I've set 'true' for temporary when I add, but they still seem to be there when I restart word
        var commandsToRemove =
            cb.Controls.OfType<Office.CommandBarButton>().Where( c => c.Tag == "RBLe.InsertDocGen" ).ToArray();

        foreach ( var r in commandsToRemove )
        {
            r.Delete( false );
            System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine( "Deleted RBLe.InsertDocGen from " + cb.Name );
        }

        var button = (Office.CommandBarButton)cb.Controls.Add( Office.MsoControlType.msoControlButton, missing, missing, missing, true );

        button.BeginGroup = true;
        button.Caption = "Insert/Edit DocGen Field";
        button.Tag = "RBLe.InsertDocGen";
        button.accName = button.Tag + "." + cb.Name;

        button.Click += insertDocGenContext_Click;

        contextMenus.Add( button );

        System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine( "Added RBLe.InsertDocGen to " + cb.Name );
    }
}

I have two problems/questions:

After adding my buttons, when I click on one of them, the insertDocGenContext_Click handler fires 14x (once for each button I've created after looping my desired targetMenus), and every time the Ctrl.accName is the same, making me think somehow I'm getting an existing reference to a button and adding the event handler over and over?
Even though I set temporary to true in my call to cb.Commands.Add(), they still appear to be there when I restart Word/Visual Studio, thus needing my delete loop.

Eugene Astafiev Eugene Astafiev · Accepted Answer · 2020-08-26T21:47:00

CommandBars were deprecated. You need to use the Fluent UI to customize context menus in Office applications. Read more about that in the Customizing Context Menus in Office 2010 article.

Programatically added context menus to Word VSTO add-in in a loop causing problems

2 Answers