Custom UI Editor Tool

re: Custom UI Editor Tool

pdanes — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 19:07:48 GMT

Looks great, a fantastic idea, but it doesn't work for me. I followed the instructions to the letter, but the new tab doesn't appear in the document.

re: Custom UI Editor Tool

JSRW — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 17:24:08 GMT

This version doesn't seem to work for me either. The previous version worked great.

re: Custom UI Editor Tool

moses — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:49:21 GMT

Excellent tool. Worked gr8 by me. Note that any mistake will cause the new tab not to appear. The best way is to check each new line of code piecemeal, i.e. add a tab and then check it in Office, add a group and check it, etc.

re: Custom UI Editor Tool

Dirus — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:05:09 GMT

The new tool did not work for me either, but I found a workaround. When you add a new UI part you will notice that it is named customUI14.xml on the left hand side. If you were using the schema with dates 2006/01 you will need to add another UI part and it will be named customUI.xml. I removed the initial UI part and used the correctly named customUI.xml one and I was fine going forward.

re: Custom UI Editor Tool

abhinav — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 21:41:16 GMT

The sample xml templates provided with the tool are targeted only for Office 2010 documents. Adding one more set of sample xml files for Office 2007 would help avoid ambiguity and namespace mismatch errors that lot of users currently face.
Also, the screenshot of the tool's UI needs updatiion :)

re: Custom UI Editor Tool

snoopen — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 04:31:30 GMT

Would be great if you could release the source under GPL licence or something similar. I'm sure there are a few people who would be willing to add more functionality to the editor! Such as a Find function :)

re: Custom UI Editor Tool

snoopen — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:54:16 GMT

I will also point out that there is a bug in this. If the "Samples" folder is missing the program will crash when expanding the Insert menu.

re: Custom UI Editor Tool

peterennis — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 03:07:21 GMT

Windows 7 64bit Ultimate. Installed 32 bit Office 2010 RC.
Installed latest Custom UI Editor.
Open / Sample / Excel...
"Corrupted data..."

Insert Sample XML,
"Unhandled exception..."
for any data sample.

Seems like the latest RC breaks the program.

re: Custom UI Editor Tool

bgale — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 12:39:23 GMT

I also downloaded and just installed the lasted attachment.
If you start the application, and try to insert sample XML you will get an error.
In my case I fixed this by opening an Excel workbook first. Then the sample XML insertion works fine.

The Insert Sample XML menu item should be disabled until there is something valid to insert it into.

re: Custom UI Editor Tool

bgale — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 13:03:37 GMT

Opening an existing Excel workbook, I inserted some sample XML, then overwrote it with the following:

<customUI xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2006/01/customui" >
<ribbon startFromScratch="false" >
<tabs>
<tab id="CustomTab" label="My Tab" >
<group id="SimpleControls" label="My Group">
<toggleButton id="ToggleButton1"
size="large" label="Large Toggle Button"/>
<button id="Button2" label="My Button " />
<comboBox id="Combo1" label="ComboBox">
<item id="Month1" label="January" />
<item id="Month2" label="February" />
<item id="Month3" label="March" />
</comboBox>
</group>
</tab>
</tabs>
</ribbon>
</customUI>

This code was modified from: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/aa338202.aspx so that the new tab added "MyTab" is appended to the existing tabs rather than replacing them.

The only caveat with the editor is that you have to close the workbook to save edits, then reopen it. But given how much tedium this removes, this is a small inconvenience.

Thanks Trang!!

re: Custom UI Editor Tool

DannyBones — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 08:21:01 GMT

First, I don't even understand what XML is. I am just trying to find a way to create icons that are assigned to macros that I put on the quick launch bar of Word 2007. I followed the article (and one from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc501317%28office.11%29.aspx) and the suggestions here, and got it to work. Only problem is, that as soon as I close the sample.docm, that I opened from the Custom UI editor, the neat icons I made disappear in all the .docx windows (Am I making sense?).

It may seem like an ignorant question (and please dumb down the answer for me!) but can I make the Icons I loaded into the Custom UI editor stick to non-.docm's? Maybe this isn't the right place to even post this Q, that's how clueless I am!

re: Custom UI Editor Tool

GriZlore — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:53:11 GMT

@ DannyBones

"can I make the Icons I loaded into the Custom UI editor stick to non-.docm's? "

The way i understand it, no!

Office 2007 does not allow such things in DocX files. You would have to save them as DocM files. If you try and save a file which had code in as ".docx" then I think Word2007 warns you of this.

re: Custom UI Editor Tool

insurance quotes — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 20:06:43 GMT

Thank you for the tutorial.

re: Custom UI Editor Tool

Tmdean — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 20:00:20 GMT

Thanks. It would be nice if it would open the document specified in the command line, so we can add this utility to an "Open With" action for Office documents.

re: Custom UI Editor Tool

starcrwzr — Fri, 14 May 2010 20:24:02 GMT

For the most part, this utility works great, but I was unable to use my own icons. If I use the imageMso = "HappyFace", those icons appear in my tabs, but If I use image = "myicon.png" and insert the icon into the file, it only appears as a blank in the tab when I open a file. I've tried all the various flavors of icons, to no avail, any ideas?

re: Custom UI Editor Tool

CindyMeister — Sat, 15 May 2010 09:25:45 GMT

Since RTM release the Editor doesn't recognize the namespace correctly for Office 2010 customizations. It should be
<customUI xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2009/07/customui" >
So checking whether the Custom XML is well-formed does not work. Since there does not appear to be any updated documentation available about the correct construction of all the XML Parts, as there was for 2007 (the three part series, for example) it becomes very difficult to use this tool for customizations if it's not going to be updated to RTM standard. Thank you.

re: Custom UI Editor Tool

kdock — Thu, 27 May 2010 16:43:00 GMT

I installed the updated Editor today (msi file dated today, 9:15 am) and received an error when trying to insert any of the sample XML --

"Unhandled exception has occurred in your application. If you click Continue, the application will ignore this error and attempt to continue. If you click Quit, the application will close immediately."

"Object reference not set to an instance of an object."

When I click Continue, nothing is inserted. I am able to open files.
FYI, I just installed VS2010Pro Trial version.

Thank you.

re: Custom UI Editor Tool

kdock — Thu, 27 May 2010 17:35:51 GMT

You know, additionally, the UI Editor I installed doesn't look like your screenshot -- it says "Insert" instead of "Sample" and Office 2007 UI is greyed out on the Insert menu, even though this computer only has Office 2007. I've also looked back at the earliest version I have and it, too, says "Insert"

Where can I get the Custom UI Editor you have illustrated here?

Thank you.

re: Custom UI Editor Tool

kdock — Thu, 27 May 2010 21:32:25 GMT

Well, OK, I've found a whole lot of other stuff scattered around the internet and it looks as if I do have the latest, and the latest says "Insert" rather than "Sample". And the reason I was getting an error seemed to be because I didn't have a project loaded.

The reason Office 2007 UI is greyed is because I already had a customUI module in my project. Clicking Office 2010 UI added a customUI14 module which will presumable allow me to create the code for 2010 within the same project.

Has anyone written any documentation about this whole subject? How cool would that be? I find that searching on this subject scatters me all over the internet. And I'm easily distracted...

Best, kdock

re: Custom UI Editor Tool

danvarela — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 01:04:43 GMT

Como lo descargo

re: Custom UI Editor Tool

kdock — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 02:21:01 GMT

Is anyone else having this issue? When my XML code is long enough that it doesn't fit in the window and the scroll bar appears, the display becomes "jittery" and whatever line I'm working on is forced to the bottom of the window. With each letter I type, the text hops slightly up and down in the window.

Thanks, kdock

re: Custom UI Editor Tool

positiveguy1960 — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 16:29:28 GMT

I am trying to do something similar to what DannyBones referred to "First, I don't even understand what XML is. I am just trying to find a way to create icons that are assigned to macros", but in my case - I am trying to assign permanent custom icons to the Excel 2010 "Quick Access Toolbar" that are assigned to a macro I have created in the personal.xls file so I don't want the custom icons to disappear when I close out any given workbook. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Chet

re: Custom UI Editor Tool

MajorWalrus — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:28:49 GMT

First of all, thank you for this tool. It really makes Office UI development far easier than it would otherwise be.

However, I'm sadden to see that there is some basic functionality that is missing from it, as well as what seem to be a bugs.

Missing functions-
- Undo. Ctrl+Z doesn't work.
- Smart tabbing. New lines wrap around to the very beginning of the text field, instead of start at the tab position of the line preceeding (a lot like this text box).
(Ideally, new lines would start here.) This makes for very messy code that must be manually tabbed in order to be aligned.

Bugs-
- The text field automatically scrolls to position the cursor at the bottom of the field when there is more than one page of code.
- The above bug seems to be triggered when every a key is pressed. This can make it difficult to keep an eye on what is being typed because the page is jerking to the bottom with every keystroke.

Again, thank you for this tool. My only aim with these comments is to help you make it even better.

re: Custom UI Editor Tool

ricol — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 12:33:01 GMT

I get "attribute not defined" when trying to use getImageMso for a toggleButton control, but the documentation on MSDN says it is defined. Is this a bug?