Visual Basic Q&A

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This article demonstrates how to programmatically control Microsoft Outlook using Automation from Visual Basic. The example demonstrates creating contacts, creating appointments, and sending messages by using Microsoft Outlook’s object-model.
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Follow the steps below to create and run the example. To run the sample, you need an early-bound reference to a Microsoft Outlook type library. The following table lists the file names of the type libraries for the different versions of Microsoft Outlook:
Collapse this tableExpand this table
Outlook versionHow type library appears in references listFilenameOutlook 97″Microsoft Outlook 8.0 Object Library”msoutl8.olbmsoutl8.olb”Microsoft Outlook 98 Object Library”msoutl85.olbOutlook 2000″Microsoft Outlook 9.0 Object Library”msoutl9.olbOutlook 2002″Microsoft Outlook 10.0 Object Library”msoutl.olbOffice Outlook 2003″Microsoft Outlook 11.0 Object Library”msoutl.olb
Building the automation sampleStart Visual Basic, and create a new Standard EXE project.From the Project menu, choose References and select Microsoft Outlook.Add a button to your form.Double-click the button, and then add the following code:

‘ Start Outlook. ‘ If it is already running, you’ll use the same instance…Dim olApp As Outlook.ApplicationSet olApp = CreateObject(“Outlook.Application”)’ Logon. Doesn’t hurt if you are already running and logged on…Dim olNs As Outlook.NameSpaceSet olNs = olApp.GetNamespace(“MAPI”)olNs.Logon ‘ Create and Open a new contact.Dim olItem As Outlook.ContactItemSet olItem = olApp.CreateItem(olContactItem) ‘ Setup Contact information…With olItem.FullName = “James Smith”.Birthday = “9/15/1975″.CompanyName = “Microsoft”.HomeTelephoneNumber = “704-555-8888″.Email1Address = “someone@microsoft.com”.JobTitle = “Developer”.HomeAddress = “111 Main St.” & vbCr & “Charlotte, NC 28226″End With’ Save Contact…olItem.Save’ Create a new appointment.Dim olAppt As Outlook.AppointmentItemSet olAppt = olApp.CreateItem(olAppointmentItem)’ Set start time for 2-minutes from now…olAppt.Start = Now() + (2# / 24# / 60#)’ Setup other appointment information…With olAppt.Duration = 60.Subject = “Meeting to discuss plans…”.Body = “Meeting with ” & olItem.FullName & ” to discuss plans.”.Location = “Home Office”.ReminderMinutesBeforeStart = 1.ReminderSet = TrueEnd With’ Save Appointment…olAppt.Save’ Send a message to your new contact.Dim olMail As Outlook.MailItemSet olMail = olApp.CreateItem(olMailItem) ‘ Fill out & send message…olMail.To = olItem.Email1AddressolMail.Subject = “About our meeting…”olMail.Body = _”Dear ” & olItem.FirstName & “, ” & vbCr & vbCr & vbTab & _”I’ll see you in 2 minutes for our meeting!” & vbCr & vbCr & _”Btw: I’ve added you to my contact list.”olMail.Send’ Clean up…MsgBox “All done…”, vbMsgBoxSetForegroundolNS.LogoffSet olNs = NothingSet olMail = NothingSet olAppt = NothingSet olItem = NothingSet olApp = Nothing Run the project, and click the button to run the code. Once the code runs, you should have a new contact named “James Smith,” an appointment scheduled in two minutes with a reminder to appear in one minute, and have sent a message to someone@microsoft.com. Also, because you added a birthday for your contact (9/15), a recurring event was added for your Outlook Calendar to remind you of the day.
New to Outlook 2002 are the two dialog boxes: one warning you that a program is trying to access e-mail addresses you have stored in Outlook and asking if you want to allow this, and another message to the effect that a program is trying to send e-mail. This feature will protect you from unknowingly being used by a virus that sends e-mail from your system.
For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
290500?(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290500/) Description of the developer-related e-mail security features in Outlook 2002

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ADOX is an extension to ActiveX Data Objects that allows the manipulation of the database schema. This article illustrates how to use ADOX to create a table and add a Primary Key.
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NOTE: Not all OLE DB providers support the interfaces required to support ADOX methods. With those providers, you have to use Data Definition Queries or another object model to manipulate the database schema.
The first procedure in the example below creates a new table in an existing Microsoft Access database, creates a new field in that table, then creates a primary key index. When adding a single-field primary key, you do not need to use the ADOX Key object.
The second procedure utilizes the ADOX Key object to add a multiple field key to a table.
Steps to Create the Sample Application In Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 or 6.0, create a new Standard EXE project. Form1 is created by default. On the Project menu, select References to add the following type libraries:
Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects 2.1 Library
Microsoft ADO Ext. 2.1 for DDL and Security Add two Command buttons (Command1 and Command2) and the following code to the Form1:

Option ExplicitPrivate Sub Command1_Click()” This code adds a single-field Primary key’Dim Cn As ADODB.Connection, Cat As ADOX.Catalog, objTable As ADOX.TableSet Cn = New ADODB.ConnectionSet Cat = New ADOX.CatalogSet objTable = New ADOX.Table’Open the connectionCn.Open “Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=biblio.mdb”‘Open the CatalogSet Cat.ActiveConnection = Cn’Create the tableobjTable.Name = “Test_Table”‘Create and Append a new field to the “Test_Table” Columns CollectionobjTable.Columns.Append “PrimaryKey_Field”, adInteger’Create and Append a new key. Note that we are merely passing’the “PimaryKey_Field” column as the source of the primary key. This’new Key will be Appended to the Keys Collection of “Test_Table”objTable.Keys.Append “PrimaryKey”, adKeyPrimary, “PrimaryKey_Field”‘Append the newly created table to the Tables CollectionCat.Tables.Append objTable’ clean up objectsSet objKey = NothingSet objTable = NothingSet Cat = NothingCn.CloseSet Cn = NothingEnd SubPrivate Sub Command2_Click()” This code adds a multi-field Primary Key’Dim Cn As ADODB.Connection, Cat As ADOX.CatalogDim objTable As ADOX.Table, objKey As ADOX.KeySet Cn = New ADODB.ConnectionSet Cat = New ADOX.CatalogSet objTable = New ADOX.TableSet objKey = New ADOX.KeyCn.Open “Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=biblio.mdb”Set Cat.ActiveConnection = CnobjTable.Name = “Test_Table2″objTable.Columns.Append “PrimaryKey_Field1″, adIntegerobjTable.Columns.Append “PrimaryKey_Field2″, adIntegerobjKey.Name = “PrimaryKey”objKey.Type = adKeyPrimaryobjKey.Columns.Append “PrimaryKey_Field1″objKey.Columns.Append “PrimaryKey_Field2″objTable.Keys.Append objKeyCat.Tables.Append objTable’ clean up objectsSet objKey = NothingSet objTable = NothingSet Cat = NothingCn.CloseSet Cn = NothingEnd Sub NOTE: You might have to adjust the connect string to point to a valid Jet database. Run the application and click the Command buttons. You can check the table definitions for Test_Table and TestTable2 in Microsoft Access 97, Microsoft Access 2000, or the Visual Basic Visual Data Manager add-in.