Week 6 (7/7 - 7/11)

Goals for the Week

Complete several more mock-ups of the boilerplate wizard.
Read more about VBA so that I know what options I will have to work with.
Work with the XML document more to add more features to the add-in ribbon.
Continue thinking of additional options that would be useful to have on the ribbon.
Look how to create more features and open needed windows automatically for users.
Work with applying transforms and thinking how to make this a build-in option.

I read over the basics of macros and the different options that are available for accessing them from various places.
I looked into how to combine all the macros that are created and make them into a package that can be downloaded and shared with multiple computers and users.
I looked over the mock-ups I have made and thought about how to improve them and what amount of information should be present on each.
I worked with the add-in program to see what different ways it can be changed and added to in order to create a solid toolbar with a good amount of options and features.
I looked into how the file can be presented to make it easier to read and be able to go through it quickly without getting stuck following long processes to complete simple tasks.

Today I worked through the book looking at how macros can be customized into the toolbar and read more about the best way to organize commands to make sure they will run for all cases.
I worked on the mock-ups after talking to Dr. Mandell about what options would be the best to have on each frame.
I thought out a few ways that the toolbar ribbon could be organized so that it would be the easiest for users to see and find options.
I went over the toolbar code some more to see how the Visual Basic commands for each individual button can be set. I want to make sure that the code that is created by myself or the macro recorded in Word can be pasted over into the ribbon program and that the code will run as it should for each button.

Today I read over how to create forms in Visual Basic to see how to set-up the macros that are being worked on for the presentation.
I also talked to Dr. Gannod about different design elements and revised the mock-ups to fit.
I am still looking at how the VBA code will be used inside the VSTO program and how these methods will get called with button pushes or if a keyboard shortcut can also be assigned.
I need to see what other options need to be on the tabs in the boilerplate and how to make this information be attached to a part of the document that is either seen or hidden depending on what will work the best and how to take this information out of the modules created.

I focused on revising some of the older designs and thought about what options would be the best to group together and make the most cohesive presentation to users.
I am working on trying to connect the macros functions to each button and what changes need to be made to allow them to be used in the VSTO environment.
I want to start developing the individual forms once there is a solid design for each and then finding out how to access the information that is entered into each of those forms.
By communicating through Thinkature, Dr. Gannod and Dr. Mandell have been able to provide places for change and this is where the design has become more apparent and this allows me to think a little more about the implementation aspect. Being able to see what to take into consideration for the implementation, I need to read about how to create the most reliable forms and be able to develop them in an organized way.

I worked on additional designs and started to try to organize the set-ups.
The requirements were updated and organized to correctly represent the scope of the project and to allow the ability to view what needs to be done and where to head next.
I am still looking to see how to transfer the code generated for macros into the .NET framework and allow for the ability to program it directly to the add-in buttons that will be created with the VSTO.
I am trying to see how .NET accesses the parts of the Word document compared to how the VBA code does when recorded or when it is manually programmed in Visual Basic.
I am going to start setting up the actual layout of the buttons in Word now that the specific requirements are laid out. This will help me address the specific challenges and be able to look into the ways to fix these.
I want to start setting up the forms and making them so that they can be mapped to the buttons for the final project.