Sneak Peak at Developer Enhancements

The PDC session abstracts have been published, and although they are written in a fairly oblique way (very deliberately I suspect) they still provide an early taster of the fun to come for developers with Office 12.

Forms Server

Creating Browser-Based InfoPath Forms...hosting the server form control in an interactive custom aspx page. [More details on the Forms Server that first saw the light of day last week]

InfoPath 12

...deeper integration with Visual Studio Tools for Office…new all-managed object model...reuse your work through form template parts...integrate InfoPath forms into your own application by hosting InfoPath as an ActiveX or WinForm control [Yes! I know so many ISVs who will love this! ]...extend InfoPath itself through COM add-ins.

User Interface

...new, declarative model for customizing the Office user interface using XML [mmm… a kind of XAML for Office then]

Outlook 12

...fundamental changes that will make 'Outlook 12' a better development platform...more robust, usable and manageable...significant changes in programming the user interaction, the core object model and performance. [This sounds like a big one. Outlook has always had a pretty tricky object model to master.]

Word 12

...takes XML document programmability to a new level, offering new flexibility and intuitive user interaction...enable a greater use of custom-defined schema [Good to see the commitment to XML in Word continuing]

All the PDC session abstracts are available at http://commnet.microsoftpdc.com/content/sessions.aspx.

If you want to get along to PDC this Sept, registrations are still open.