Day two of the conference, this time mostly about building rich clients using Info Path, there were also some VSTO tracks.
The day started with some cool information on the new ribbon interface and its extensibility model called RibbonX. Unlike the previous CommandBar infrastructure, you can't say Ribbon.Add(myRibbon), it is all done declaratively using XML. Main reason for this is better managability. Savraj showed how Excel looked after opening all the test workbooks available to Microsoft. It turns out that opening and closing all the workbooks leaves about 300 toolbars and addins opened, because most people forget they need to actively remove their toolbar on the Closing event of the workbook. No more of that, it's kinda like a fire-and-forget model. Just send the XML and Office will figure out when to show it.
Next was Info Path, with its rich client authoring for nifty forms. Info Path can now be hosted inside the browser and your own WinForms applications. You can build your form once, and deploy it to various clients. There is almost no difference, just some controls which can't be used in the web deployment scenarios. The second Info Path track showed how to integrate your custom forms with IRM, workflow inside Sharepoint and how to connect to the Business Data Catalog. Some new cool features include the ability to use template parts, which are kinda like Info Path user controls which you can re-use across forms.
The day continued with Outlook. Anyone who has written some Outlook addins knows there's load of improvements to be made. Outlook now has a consolidated object model with about 80 new objects for you to use. You can customize most screens and no more CDO, it is all in the normal object model. Loads more power for you addin developers.
Like I mentioned in the first paragraph, it was also a VSTO day. We took a look at the new beta 3 of VSTO, which will be available in the oncoming weeks. The sessions showed document and application level customizations, and also all the designers hosted inside Visual Studio (including the new ribbon). You can customize your heart out with custom taskpanes and the new server based document model. Especially the new server capabilities will come in extremely handy. There are way to many parties out there which try to automate the WinWord COM application on the server, which isn't actually supported by Microsoft.
So another very interesting day. Tomorrow we'll go and check out a VSTO application written in VSTO 2005, which we already have. Also the groovyness of Office Groove will be showed!
[updated 25-3-06]