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Smart Tag List alii

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Smart tag list files are one of the cleverest things to show up in Office, and I wish more developers would use them. What I love is that despite that smart tags do not work exactly how I want them to (I think using \\\ the triple-backslash to add cascading menus is particularly sad), the end-to-end way they are employed in Office is pretty sound. You can create plug-ins, use list files, and access the smart tag functionality through an API in VBA or managed code.

But, I think one of the reasons some developers do not test the waters is because of some confusion. For examle, list files have a lot of names. Check this out from the SDK:

Note that a smart tag list file is known variously as

  • smart tag XML list file
  • smart tag list definition file
  • smart tag list description file
  • smart tag list specification file
  • Microsoft Office Smart Tag List (MOSTL) file
  • XML list description file
  • XML smart tag list file

I say we call it, "The technology formerly known as smart tags" and just reference it by an obscure symbol.

Rock thought for the day:Total Guitar magazine published results of a poll regarding the top 100 guitar riffs of all time. Here are the top three: 3) Whole Lotta Love 2)Smells Like Teen Spirit, and 1) Sweet Child of Mine.

Look, the GNR intro is truly great. It's up there. But, better than Jimmy Pages intro in Heartbreaker?! You hear it once and you can never forget it. People have truly gone mad.

Rock on.