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Create Separate Read and Compose Pages Using Form Regions in a Custom Form

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To create distinct read and compose pages for a custom form, you can first use the Forms Designer to design a separate form region for the read page, and another separate form region for the compose page. For more information on creating a form region, see How to: Create a Form Region.

In order for Outlook to display the appropriate form region for the read page and the compose page, you can use an add-in that programmatically tells Outlook which form region to use in each case. Your add-in does this through the GetFormRegionStorage method of the FormRegionStartup interface.

To return the appropriate form region in the GetFormRegionStorage method

  • In GetFormRegionStorage, return the appropriate form region storage file (.OFS) based on the value that Outlook specifies for FormRegionMode.

    As with any COM add-in that extends a form region, your add-in will implement the Outlook.FormRegionStartup interface. In particular, when implementing the GetFormRegionStorage method of the FormRegionStartup interface, depending on the input value of the parameter FormRegionMode, your add-in will return the appropriate form region. For example, when Outlook calls GetFormRegionStorage to obtain the form region for the read page, specifying FormRegionMode as olFormRegionRead, your add-in will have implemented GetFormRegionStorage to return the form .OFS file for the form region created for the read page.

Similarly, when Outlook calls GetFormRegionStorage to obtain the form region for the compose page, specifying FormRegionMode as olFormRegionCompose, GetFormRegionStorage will return the local path to the .OFS file for the form region created for the compose page. Note that if your add-in specifies a path to an .OFS file as the return value for GetFormRegionStorage, the path must be a local path. For more information on implementing GetFormRegionStorage, see Extending a Form Region with an Add-in.

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