Office 2010 RTM and Visual Studio 2010 RTM fully supported by Add-in Express 2010 Beta 2

This is again a copy of newsletter purposed for our customers. But this time there’s a slight difference. The newsletter is not sent out yet, while blog post is already here, so you have a good chance to be among the very first readers who will learn the latest news about our Beta 2 of Add-in Express 2010. As usually, a story comes first : )

The story

In the evening of September 4, the year 881, General Li K’o-yung watched from the top of the nameless knoll the final preparations of his enemy. A huge 100-thousand army of insurgents, who had already annihilated a few governmental armies and relegated their commanders to oblivion, opposed to him. And only 4 thousand horsemen were behind him – the last and very fragile hope of the fading Tang dynasty.  Besides that, the whole China brought to ruin by a long-term revolt was behind his back, China which was the main supplier of the main merchandise of the world trade, and which had almost completely dropped out of it…

China – Sogdiana – Bagdad – Constantinople – Languedoc – Provence – Córdoba – Andalusia – and further everywhere. Thousands of kilometers of the Silk Road plunged into the darkness of desolation. Corn bins were getting empty, budgets were cut down, and as a result autocracies were destroyed, governments overthrown and wars broke out. The well-proportioned economy of the Silk Road with the loss of its base, silk, was going down the drain, carrying away ruthless tyrants and wise governors.  And everyone was at war with everyone. They battled for silk remains and for those grains that occasionally fought their way through from the East with rare caravans of merchants.  They also fought to plunder, to fill up the treasury, to pay mercenaries and to feed peoples. And peoples must be fed, otherwise they rebel…

So, General Li K’o-yung with its army was not only the last mercenary of the Tang dynasty, but also the last hope of the entire world economy. Because only he could restore the order in China and put out the fire of _the really first world war_, first world war for resources and markets…

And he did it. By what ingenious tactics, or through a special cunning, or was it a stunning piece of luck – history is silent. But what we know for sure is that his select guardsmen routed all insurgents, restoring the order and giving peaceful peasants an opportunity to catch their breath, gather up and revive the silk industry… (I hope for the near-term outlook (next 5 hundred years, or so) China is not going to drop out of the world trade again… :)

And we also gathered up, braced ourselves and published…

Beta 2 of Add-in Express 2010 for Office

I know for sure that quite an impressive number of our customers (about 2 thousand) are already using the previous beta to their utmost. To all of them as well as to those of you who received the keys but haven’t thought yet about the compatibility with Office 2010, I recommend installing beta 2. And here is why…

You get RTM of Office 2010 completely supported (.NET and VCL)

Unlike beta 1, which we tested under Office beta, beta 2 of Add-in Express 2010 is fully compatible with Office 2010 RTM.

You get RTM of Visual Studio 2010 completely supported (.NET only)

The same story is here – beta 1 was tested with VS 2010 RC, while beta 2 has been tested with VS 2010 RTM.

You get a lot of bugs fixed (.NET and VCL)

Probably those tens of bugs that were fixed in beta 2 will seem you insignificant in number (for me, there are too many of them). I can’t stand bugs at all, and particularly in our products. To tell you the truth, each our bug still sends a shiver down my spine, though my experience says that there is no software without bugs ;)

You get Outlook regions improved (NET and VCL)

Office 2010 turned out a hard nut to crack for our regions. And somehow we got used to the thought that we would have to introduce some limitations. But in this beta some limitations are removed and, most importantly, we have supported To-Do Bar regions and regions for mobile and shared Outlook items. The next station is reading pane- and task pane-based regions.

You get new designers integrated (NET only)

You can find more detailed info in Pieter’s post. The next station is a designer for the Office 2010 Backstage View.

You get all new Office 2010 events published (.NET and VCL)

Over 50 new events, available only in Office 2010 were added to our event helper components.

You get OSM 2010 released (.NET and VCL, premium only)

Security Manager 2010 for Outlook is released and included in your premium packages.

Useful links

Add-in Express 2010 Blog – the place to look for features and tricks added and improved in beta 2
Add-in Express 2010 for Office and .net – what’s new in beta 2
Add-in Express 2010 for Office and VCL – what’s new in beta 2
Security Manager 2010 for Outlook – what’s new in version 2010

That’s all. Thanks for your smiles :)