To fix the issue you have to edit some auto-generated VSTO code and release the OutlookItem during a setup event like so:

private void RegionFactory_FormRegionInitializing(object sender, Outlook.FormRegionInitializingEventArgs e)
{
    Marshal.ReleaseComObject(e.OutlookItem);
}

This block of code can be found in the region block labeled: #region Form Region Factory

Apparently, a Microsoft support engineer posted about this back in August of 2008, but I never came across it until after working with a different very nice MSDN support engineer.

The other day however, I realized that the trick above does not in fact work for Distribution List (IPM.DistList) form regions. Watch the following video for proof!

I contacted the very nice engineer who helped me before to re-open/create a support ticket about the issue. While waiting for a response however, I kept trying to fix the issue and finally did. I’m quite hopeful that my fix is not the best answer, as it’s truly a bizarre hack.

Take a look at the Designer code generated for your region. The IFormRegionFactory which creates an instance of the actual ImportedFormRegion does not need to return anything for the region to load. In fact, if you throw an exception from IFormRegionFactory.CreateFormRegion, the DistListItem is properly unreferenced when the inspector is closed.

You can watch the following video to see it in action!

As you can see this isn’t very fancy – two check-boxes to control if you want the email and/or fax addresses sent along to PSES. Naturally, there is also an option to opt-in distribution lists:

This is of course where the fun began. In my personal opinion distribution lists were not properly implemented, or rather updated from earlier versions of Outlook. For instance, take a close look at the image above. Notice how a “fax” address is listed under the “E-mail” column? Do you also notice how it has the @ symbol? What in the world is going on here?

Another issue is how the ContactItem relates to the Recipient – or rather how you can obtain the actual contact from the item in the distribution list. Based on documentation we should be able to use the GetContact() method found a little ways down on the Recipient class.

Outlook.Recipient.AddressEntry.GetContact()

Sadly however, this doesn’t work (for me at-least) no matter what I did. So after a decent amount of trial and error I was able to determine that a Recipient’s EntryID actually contains the the Contact’s EntryID.

For example:

Recipient.EntryID = "abcd-1234";
Contact.EntryID = "1234";

This is simplified of course as real ID’s are quite long. So to actually get the contact we should do this:

Outlook.Recipient r = DistListItem.GetMember(1);
string rid = r.EntryID;
rid = rid.Substring(rid.Length - 48);

Outlook.ContactItem c = Application.Session.GetItemFromID(rid, null) as Outlook.ContactItem;

Hopefully someone else will find this mess useful as I couldn’t find anything a year ago about these oddities and issues.

public class UserService : RestService
{
	[RestMethod("GET", "^$")]
	public IList RetrieveAll()
	{
	}

	[RestMethod("GET", @"^(?<id>[0-9]+)$")]
	public User Retrieve(int id)
	{
	}

	[RestMethod("HEAD", @"^(?<name>\w+)$")]
	public User Exists(string name)
	{
	}

	[RestMethod("PUT", "^$", typeof(User))]
	public User Create(User user)
	{
	}

	[RestMethod("POST", "^$", typeof(User))]
	public bool Update(User user)
	{
	}

	[RestMethod("DELETE", @"^(?<id>[0-9]*)$")]
	public bool Delete(int id)
	{
	}
}

As you can see there are a lot of differences:

• Heavy influence from newer APIs
• Methods can return any Type
• Methods can take 0 or more arguments of any Type
• RestMethodAttribute has been added to match URLs against methods

Most of the code above should be self-explanatory, but in case it’s not here’s some help.

The method decorator [RestMethod("GET", "^$")] tells the framework that any HTTP GET requests against the UserService class without any trailing arguments (http://localhost/user.r) should be handled by RetrieveAll().

The method decorator [RestMethod("GET", @"^(?<id>[0-9]+)$”)] tells the framework that any HTTP GET request against the UserService class which ends with a number only (http://localhost/user.r/1, http://localhost/user.r/5000, etc) should be handled by Retrieve(int id). The cool thing here is that the regex group will provide a match to the argument name so our function will be called with whatever number the URL ends with. So calling http://localhost/user.r/25 where the following is the executed method will result in?

[RestMethod("GET", @"^(?<id>[0-9]+)$")]
public bool Retrieve(int id)
{
	return id == 25;
}

TRUE!! Pretty simple, and very cool. Another nice feature is when the HTTP request contains a body like a POST or PUT would. So POSTing to http://localhost/user.r with a body of:

{'user': {
	'first_name': 'Matthew',
	'last_name': 'Metnetsky'
}}

would call the method decorated with [RestMethod("POST", "^$", typeof(User))] and it’s user argument would actually be set assuming the class implemented a JSON serializer. All of the URL/body mappers are definable by implementing Binder and listing them in the web.config against a Content-Type. By default there are Binders for form variables, JSON, XML, raw streams, and a few more.

So why might I be discussing the external API of a closed library? To PUSH innovation in the current public ones. By taking these ideas and creating an “open” version I’m sure I’d be breaking my contract so I’ve got two options:

1. Expose our public API to entice and PUSH others to innovate
2. Get a lot of feedback which might enable me to get our library opened

So…. let me know….

public interface IRestService
{
	void Head(RestEventArgs args);
	object Get(RestEventArgs args);
	object Put(RestEventArgs args);
	object Post(RestEventArgs args);
}

As you can probably guess the request’s HTTP Method was transformed into the function name and executed accordingly. If the method wasn’t “known” we would then use reflection to find the method for execution. Not to fansy as you can see, but it worked.

If a request was made for http://localhost/app/users.r the IHttpHandler factory would load users.r and it would tell us what class you assigned to it (much like @Page CodeBehind/Inherits in .aspx). From there we would instantiate the class and call the appropriate method. Whatever you returned would be marshalled for wire transfer based on it’s type.

	class User : IXmlSerializable
	{
		/* ... */
	}

	public class UserService : RestService
	{
		public object Get(RestEventArgs args);
		{
			return new User(5, "Matthew", "Metnetsky");
		}
	}
}

Calling http://localhost/app/users.r would execute UserService::Get(..) which would return a User instance. The results are then inspected for a few different interfaces like IXmlSerializable, IJsonSerializable (one of ours), etc. Based on what is supported by the Type, we then check if the requester supports it by interogating their “Accepts” header. This way each requester can receive what they understand how to handle (for instance – don’t send JSON to AS3). The system really worked well, and it’s simplicity made it damn fast.

Like all frameworks however, once it was actually in use we were able to see the pitfalls and issues. Take a look at the following URLs:

• http://localhost/app/users.r
• http://localhost/app/users.r/1
• http://localhost/app/users.r/matthew

In order to handle all of the urls above the Get(RestEventArgs) method turned into one big switch/if/else conditional. Some people made it prettier than others, but the result was the same. So about 14 months ago we upgraded our framework – check back soon to see how we did it, and why I’m bringing it up now.

One of the pieces we needed was a databases abstraction layer (we had grand ideas) so we first sought to flush out the ObjectSpaces API for Mono. Sadly, Microsoft couldn’t get their act together so we built our own. So in honor of Microsoft we called it Phil-And-Matt Spaces, shortened to PMS. After it’s original debut it sat on the selves for quite some time until I started working for Konica Minolta Business Solutions and was tasked with creating Printgroove. PMS hit the spot (man that sounds funny) – it was far from bad, but it certainly wasn’t awesome. At the point of its resurrection it needed a face lift, but never got one.

It’s now been years since Printgroove got started and PMS has continued to work well for it and numerous other projects – but I’ve got an itch that must be scratched. So while working on a small web service only project I’ve been adding in a couple dozen extra hours to mature PMS – or basically throw away it’s entire user facing API.

Here’s a sneak peak of whats to come:

// - Pull IDbConnection from pool based on unique name (from config file)
// - This is useful if you have multiple databases to chat with
// - Not specifying a name will load the one marked default or the first one found
using (DbBroker cxt = new DbBroker("name-mapping-to-config-connection-string")) {

    // SELECT member.* FROM member WHERE username LIKE '%a%' ORDER BY id
	// Enumerate through results without storing Member objects in container
	foreach (Member m in cxt.Query<Member>().Like("username", "%a%").OrderBy("id").Exec())
		Console.WriteLine(" : " + m);

	// Use raw SQL and ignore chainable methods for generation
	// Store results in List<Member> and then iterate through it
	string sql = "SELECT member.* FROM member where username LIKE '%a%' ORDER BY id";
	foreach (Member m in cxt.Exec<Member>().Objects<List<Member>>(sql))
		Console.WriteLine(" : " + m);

	// get first member
	Console.WriteLine("first: " + cxt.Query<Member>().Exec().First());

	// a short-cut to get the first member since we aren't filtering etc
	Console.WriteLine("first: " + cxt.Exec<Member>().First());

	// SELECT COUNT(member.*) FROM member WHERE id > 50000
	// Use generics to cast the output of ExecuteScalar to an Int32
	Console.WriteLine("count: " + cxt.Query<Member>().Filter("id > 50000").Exec().Count<int>());

	// Directly call ExecuteScalar but use generics to cast the output
    sql = "SELECT id FROM member WHERE username='mimetnet'";
	Console.WriteLine("scalar: " + cxt.Exec<Member>().Scalar<int>(sql));

	// Directly call ExecuteReader() with our generated SQL
	// SELECT id,username FROM member WHERE id > 68665
	using (IDataReader reader = cxt.Query<Member>()
									.GreaterThan("id", 68665)
									.SetColumns("id,username")
									.Exec()
									.Reader()) {
		while (reader.Read()) {
			Console.WriteLine("Member(id={0}, name='{1}')", reader[0], reader[1]);
		}
	}
}

Please send me your thoughts/concerns/nightmares.

I eventually stopped brute forcing an attempt and intelligently looked at Apache2′s logs and found this wonderful line:

10.10.220.130 – - [10/Feb/2009:20:24:16 -0500] “GET /vrm/Create_Report.php?download=vrm_report_17_10-10-220-130.pdf HTTP/1.1″ 1 68856 “-” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; …)”

Do you notice whats wrong? No? Look for the 1 after “HTTP/1.1″ and before the “68856″ – this is where the HTTP Status Code should be. Eh? What happened? Where’d my status go? The server-side looked like this:

if (file_exists($file)) {
	header('Content-Type', 'application/octet-stream', true);
	header('Content-Disposition', 'attachment/filename=' . $filename, true);
	header('Content-Length', filesize($file), true);
	header('Content-Description', 'File Transfer');
	readfile($file);
}

Any one notice the issue – header is being use inappropriately. The first argument should be the entire response header, the second argument is the option to override a matching header, and the third is the status code. “true” evaluates “1″ and thus the status of 1. You might ask as I am right now: Why is he divulging that he’s an idiot? Well folks it goes like this:

It’s 10:55PM and I’ve been programming since 8:30AM to meet a deadline. Things get missed and stupid mistakes happen. The above code worked on (IIS 6 + PHP5) but failed on (Apache2 + PHP5) – and this is one of the many reasons I hate PHP. The second argument should be a boolean and should SCREAM to the error log if you don’t match the type expected. Instead it says nothing, and leaves you to your madness.

Anyways, lets fix the code and go home!

	header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream', true, 200);
	header('Content-Disposition: attachment/filename=' . $filename, true);
	header('Content-Length: ' . filesize($file), true);
	header('Content-Description: File Transfer');

10.10.220.130 – - [10/Feb/2009:22:14:15 -0500] “GET /vrm/Create_Report.php?download=vrm_report_1_10-10-220-130.pdf HTTP/1.1″ 200 68856 “-” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; …)”

Gah ;-0

public final class EmployeeTitle extends BaseModel
{
	public var id:Number = NaN;
	public var title:String = '';

	public function EmployeeTitle()
	{
		super();
	}

	public static function fromXML(xml:XML):EmployeeTitle
	{
		return null; /* we should do something important here */
	}
}

turns into the following XML…

<type name="kmbs.model::EmployeeTitle" base="kmbs.model::BaseModel" isDynamic="false" isFinal="true" isStatic="false">
  <extendsClass type="kmbs.model::BaseModel"/>
  <extendsClass type="Object"/>
  <variable name="id" type="Number"/>
  <variable name="title" type="String"/>
  <method name="assignXML" declaredBy="kmbs.model::BaseModel" returnType="void">
    <parameter index="1" type="XML" optional="false"/>
  </method>
  <method name="toString" declaredBy="kmbs.model::BaseModel" returnType="String"/>
  <method name="toXML" declaredBy="kmbs.model::BaseModel" returnType="XML"/>
</type>

As I was looking for a way to marshal the type to XML for pushing to the server it seems like this was the closest I was going to get. So I wrote some code and got the basics working no problem. A few days ago I realized that most of my models would be a bit more useful if they were [Bindable] and thus dispatched events about their changes (lets keep those interfaces up to date eh?). So I added what .NET calls attributes and Flex calls metadata tags.. [Bindable] to my class.

[Bindable]
public final class EmployeeTitle extends BaseModel
{
	/* .... */
}

Once I did this however, none of my XML marshaling was working because apparently the type descriptor is now totally different.

<type name="kmbs.model::EmployeeTitle" base="kmbs.model::BaseModel" isDynamic="false" isFinal="true" isStatic="false">
  <extendsClass type="kmbs.model::BaseModel"/>
  <extendsClass type="Object"/>
  <implementsInterface type="flash.events::IEventDispatcher"/>
  <method name="addEventListener" declaredBy="kmbs.model::EmployeeTitle" returnType="void">
    <parameter index="1" type="String" optional="false"/>
    <parameter index="2" type="Function" optional="false"/>
    <parameter index="3" type="Boolean" optional="true"/>
    <parameter index="4" type="int" optional="true"/>
    <parameter index="5" type="Boolean" optional="true"/>
  </method>
  <accessor name="id" access="readwrite" type="Number" declaredBy="kmbs.model::EmployeeTitle">
    <metadata name="Bindable">
      <arg key="event" value="propertyChange"/>
    </metadata>
  </accessor>
  <method name="hasEventListener" declaredBy="kmbs.model::EmployeeTitle" returnType="Boolean">
    <parameter index="1" type="String" optional="false"/>
  </method>
  <method name="dispatchEvent" declaredBy="kmbs.model::EmployeeTitle" returnType="Boolean">
    <parameter index="1" type="flash.events::Event" optional="false"/>
  </method>
  <method name="willTrigger" declaredBy="kmbs.model::EmployeeTitle" returnType="Boolean">
    <parameter index="1" type="String" optional="false"/>
  </method>
  <method name="removeEventListener" declaredBy="kmbs.model::EmployeeTitle" returnType="void">
    <parameter index="1" type="String" optional="false"/>
    <parameter index="2" type="Function" optional="false"/>
    <parameter index="3" type="Boolean" optional="true"/>
  </method>
  <accessor name="title" access="readwrite" type="String" declaredBy="kmbs.model::EmployeeTitle">
    <metadata name="Bindable">
      <arg key="event" value="propertyChange"/>
    </metadata>
  </accessor>
  <method name="assignXML" declaredBy="kmbs.model::BaseModel" returnType="void">
    <parameter index="1" type="XML" optional="false"/>
  </method>
  <method name="toString" declaredBy="kmbs.model::BaseModel" returnType="String"/>
  <method name="toXML" declaredBy="kmbs.model::BaseModel" returnType="XML"/>
</type>

As you can see all of the variable tags have been replaced by accessor tags. And methods have been added in order to perform the Event handling/dispatching, but apparently the class doesn’t extend something special. Instead the compiler seemingly injects raw methods, which bothers me for some reason.

As you can see I find Flex’s internals rather weird instead of smart, but as I said, everyone has their opinions.

PHP: The following code creates a simple XML feed.

<?php
	/**
	 * Create a XML calendar for a given year &amp; month
	 *
	 * Noah Massey &amp; Matthew Metnetsky
	 */
	function calendar_xml($doc, $year, $month)
	{
		if (!$doc) throw new Exception('doc is bad');
		if (!$month) throw new Exception('month  is bad');
		if (!$year) throw new Exception('year is bad');

		$numDays = date('t', mktime(0, 0, 0, $month, 1, $year));

		$monthNode = $doc->appendChild($doc->createElement('month'));

		$day = 1 - date('w', mktime(0, 0, 0, $month, 1, $year));

		do {
			$weekNode = $monthNode->appendChild($doc->createElement('week'));

			for ($y=0;$y<7 and $day <= $numDays; $day++,$y++) {
				//$sunday = ($day == $y);
				//$sunday = ($day == ($y + 6));
				$dayNode = $weekNode->appendChild($doc->createElement('day'));
				$numAttr = $doc->createAttribute('num');
				$numAttr->appendChild($doc->createTextNode($day));
				$dayNode->appendChild($numAttr);

				/*
				 * we could loop through database records here for holidays etc
				 * the _real_ version uses mktime(0, 0, 0, $month, $day, $year)
				 * to check for a stamp within an array of holiday records
				 * and then tack on some more nodes to $dayNode
				 */
			}
		} while ($day <= $numDays);
	}

	$doc = new DOMDocument('1.0', 'UTF-8');
	$doc->formatOutput = true;

	$date = getdate();
	$year = (int) (array_key_exists('year', $_GET))? $_GET['year'] : $date['year'];
	$month = (int) (array_key_exists('month', $_GET))? $_GET['month'] : $date['mon'];

	calendar_xml($doc, $year, $month);
	header('Content-Type: application/xml', true);
	echo($doc->saveXML());
?>

If you look at the rather large comment block above you can see where the value comes in. It’s pretty simple to use a unix timestamp to find records which you actually would want in the XML like holidays, events, etc.

The basic output looks like the following, and can be see in full at http://cowarthill.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/calendar-xml.php

	<month>
		<week>
			<day num="{day of month}" />
		</week>
	</month>

MXML: Lets define our DataGrid and our HTTPService which will retrieve our data.

<mx:DataGrid id="dg"
	sortableColumns="false"
	draggableColumns="false"
	selectable="false"
	showScrollTips="true"
	horizontalScrollPolicy="off"
	verticalScrollPolicy="off">
	<mx:columns>
		<mx:DataGridColumn headerText="Sunday" itemRenderer="calendar.MonthCell" />
		<mx:DataGridColumn headerText="Monday" itemRenderer="calendar.MonthCell" />
		<mx:DataGridColumn headerText="Tuesday" itemRenderer="calendar.MonthCell" />
		<mx:DataGridColumn headerText="Wednesday" itemRenderer="calendar.MonthCell" />
		<mx:DataGridColumn headerText="Thursday" itemRenderer="calendar.MonthCell"  />
		<mx:DataGridColumn headerText="Friday" itemRenderer="calendar.MonthCell" />
		<mx:DataGridColumn headerText="Saturday" itemRenderer="calendar.MonthCell" />
	</mx:columns>
</mx:DataGrid>

<mx:HTTPService id="calHS"
	url="http://localhost/project/calendar-xml.php"
	method="GET"
	result="handleCalXML(event);"
	fault="Alert.show('Failed to retrieve XML from server');"
	resultFormat="e4x"
	contentType="application/xml"/>

AS3: Now we need at least two functions: 1 to call the service and retrieve the XML; and a second take the response and assign it to the DataGrid.

/* month should be 1-based (January) */
public function retrieveCalendar():void
{
	calHS.url = 'http://localhost/project/calendar-xml.php?year=' + year + '&month=' + month;
	calHS.send();
}

/* handle the results from from calendar-xml.php */
private function handleCalXML(event:ResultEvent):void
{
	var weeks:XMLList = event.result.week as XMLList;

	/* dg is defined above in the MXML */
	this.dg.dataProvider = dayInfo;
	this.dg.rowCount = weeks.length(); // grid show be no bigger than necessary
}

Now we’re going to create a reusable itemRenderer which is instantiated for each cell in the DataGrid. You can do this in MXML directly, but I like AS3. The most important function to focus on is the setter for data because it assigns the values based on the XML we received.

package calendar
{
	import mx.collections.XMLListCollection;
	import mx.controls.TextArea;
	import mx.controls.listClasses.BaseListData;
	import mx.controls.listClasses.IDropInListItemRenderer;
	import mx.controls.listClasses.IListItemRenderer;
	import mx.core.IDataRenderer;
	import mx.events.FlexEvent;

	public class MonthCell  extends TextArea
							implements IDataRenderer, IDropInListItemRenderer, IListItemRenderer
	{
		private var _week:XMLListCollection = null;
		private var _day:XML = null;
		private var _listData:BaseListData;

		public function MonthCell()
		{
			super();

			this.editable = false;
			this.wordWrap = true;
			this.selectable = false;
		}

		[Bindable(FlexEvent.DATA_CHANGE)]
		public override function get listData():BaseListData
		{
			return this._listData;
		}

		public override function set listData(ldata:BaseListData):void
		{
			if (this._listData != ldata) {
			this._listData = ldata;
			this.dispatchEvent(new FlexEvent(FlexEvent.DATA_CHANGE));
			}
		}

		[Bindable(FlexEvent.DATA_CHANGE)]
		public override function get data():Object
		{
			return this._week;
		}

		public override function set data(value:Object):void
		{
			var xml:XML = value as XML;

			if (xml) {
				// convert XML to a list for extra methods
				this._week = new XMLListCollection(xml.children());

				// make sure we've got enough records in week
				// to be able to get the current day
				if (this._week.length > this.listData.columnIndex) {
					this._day = this._week.getItemAt(this.listData.columnIndex) as XML;
				} else {
					this._day = null; // clear in-case we're reused
				}
			}

			// do we have a valid day XML object
			if (this._week == null || this._day == null || int(this._day.@num) < 1) {
				this.htmlText = "";
			} else {
				/* lets display the day of the month in the cell */
				this.htmlText = "<p><b>" + this._day.@num + "</b></p>";
			}

			this.invalidateProperties();
			this.dispatchEvent(new FlexEvent(FlexEvent.DATA_CHANGE));
		}
	}
}

Upon receipt of 204 IE appears to halt parsing as the XMLHttpRequest instance becomes corrupt and is no longer usable. Checking true/false against the instance works (and is false), but querying a method or variable from the instance produces an error.

var xhr = null;

try {
    // without try/catch IE throws error for no good reason
    xhr = new Ajax.Request(url, options);
} catch (exe) {
    /* will never fail on IE for 204 */
    console.error(exe);
}

// xhr is invalid for IE + POST + 204
if (xhr) {
    resp = xhr.transport;
} else if (/^post$/i.test(method) && this.isInternetExplorer()) {
    resp = this.FAKE_204_RESPONSE();
}

I vaguely remember reading on some site that IE fails on POST + 204 because it helps the browser short circuit and keep from redrawing the interface from a <form/> submission. This sort of makes sense because you can then upload/POST form data without having to redraw the page and still know if everything succeeded.

Either way, it is truly annoying. And the only reason I’m evening posting about this, other than education and helping myself remember, is that my original comments around the code above was vulgar. It happened to have been 3AM or so and my polite-o-meter wasn’t working well. It is now almost three years later and I believe some people have seen the original comments and didn’t find it appropriate – to which they are correct.

With that said – Internet Explorer has some weird quirks.

Silverlight has the same damn issue. Apparently none of the blog posts I read a WHILE back (2+ yrs) mentioned the fact that Flash, and now Silverlight, use the lowest common denominator for their web request classes…. NPAPI (Gecko/Mozilla Plugin SDK). I’m sure there are good reasons for using the embedded ones, security, re-usability, performance too – but it’s rather annoying!

Why the NPAPI developers don’t augment the API, I have no idea. But at least Silverlight allows for a HTML event to trigger the OpenFileDialog.ShowDialog() without having to do fun invisible overlays.

Silverlight:
http://wilcob.com/Wilco/Silverlight/http-requests-in-silverlight.aspx

Flash:

http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/langref/flash/net/FileReference.html
http://theflashblog.com/?p=423