I have by trying (without success) for over a week ot get InkOverlay
to attach to a freshly-created MS Word application window. Does anyone
have working code (vb.net preferred, but I can translate if needed)
that creates a new instance of Word (I don't really care HOW) and
attaches an InkOverlay object to it?

You may have better luck if you were running within the Winword process as a
COM addin. I'm not sure you can attach an InkOverlay or RealTimeStylus to a
HWND that is not in the same process.

--
Josh Einstein (Tablet PC MVP)
Einstein Technologies
Tablet Enhancements for Outlook - Try it free: www.tabletoutlook.com


"Matt Ray" <themattray******.com> wrote in message
news:1183744592.965888.10570@g13g2000hsf.googlegro ups.com...
>I have by trying (without success) for over a week ot get InkOverlay
> to attach to a freshly-created MS Word application window. Does anyone
> have working code (vb.net preferred, but I can translate if needed)
> that creates a new instance of Word (I don't really care HOW) and
> attaches an InkOverlay object to it?
>

Thank you for the response, Josh. It is truly appreciated.

I am still incredibly fuzzy on the COM addins for office. From a "best
practices" standpoint, are there any real solid tutorials or source code
examples for rapid development of such addins?

"Josh Einstein" wrote:

> You may have better luck if you were running within the Winword process as a
> COM addin. I'm not sure you can attach an InkOverlay or RealTimeStylus to a
> HWND that is not in the same process.
>
> --
> Josh Einstein (Tablet PC MVP)
> Einstein Technologies
> Tablet Enhancements for Outlook - Try it free: www.tabletoutlook.com
>
>
> "Matt Ray" <themattray******.com> wrote in message
> news:1183744592.965888.10570@g13g2000hsf.googlegro ups.com...
> >I have by trying (without success) for over a week ot get InkOverlay
> > to attach to a freshly-created MS Word application window. Does anyone
> > have working code (vb.net preferred, but I can translate if needed)
> > that creates a new instance of Word (I don't really care HOW) and
> > attaches an InkOverlay object to it?
> >
>

There's a couple of ways to get into the Winword process. Typically it's
done using IDTExtensibility2 which is the global "extensibility" interface
that allows add-ins to work with most Office applications, Visual Studio,
and other applications that support it. It's very generic by design and is a
very simple interface to implement but not necessarily simple to do
correctly.

Then there is VSTO (Visual Studio Tools for Office) which has pretty good
support for Word. You can find more info about VSTO here:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/office/aa905533.aspx

But basically, both of these technologies just provide a way to get your dll
loaded into the Winword.exe process where you have access to the object
model. But a side benefit for you is that your code should then be able to
hook up an InkOverlay or RealTimeStylus (in theory) to Word. It's probably
not going to be trivial though. My friend Loren spent a great deal of time
getting Ink Gestures (www.inkgestures.com) to work. I'm not sure about the
specific issues he ran into though.

Josh

"Matt Ray" <Matt Ray@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:6CAE3CF0-61F6-4CB4-9368-A3A386906FA5@microsoft.com...
> Thank you for the response, Josh. It is truly appreciated.
>
> I am still incredibly fuzzy on the COM addins for office. From a "best
> practices" standpoint, are there any real solid tutorials or source code
> examples for rapid development of such addins?
>
> "Josh Einstein" wrote:
>
>> You may have better luck if you were running within the Winword process
>> as a
>> COM addin. I'm not sure you can attach an InkOverlay or RealTimeStylus to
>> a
>> HWND that is not in the same process.
>>
>> --
>> Josh Einstein (Tablet PC MVP)
>> Einstein Technologies
>> Tablet Enhancements for Outlook - Try it free: www.tabletoutlook.com
>>
>>
>> "Matt Ray" <themattray******.com> wrote in message
>> news:1183744592.965888.10570@g13g2000hsf.googlegro ups.com...
>> >I have by trying (without success) for over a week ot get InkOverlay
>> > to attach to a freshly-created MS Word application window. Does anyone
>> > have working code (vb.net preferred, but I can translate if needed)
>> > that creates a new instance of Word (I don't really care HOW) and
>> > attaches an InkOverlay object to it?
>> >
>>