MSDN Windows Vista and Microsoft Office Beta Experience Newsletter No. 3, May 9, 2006

Editorial

Welcome the third edition of the Beta Experience newsletter for Windows Vista and 2007 Microsoft Office system!

Some of the most exciting changes in the 2007 Microsoft Office system for developers are on the server side and that is why most of this issue is dedicated to giving you a preview of the 2007 Office Server Components. For many of you this will be your first look at the 2007 Office Server Components. We have an Office Server Developers Overview – a server side developer roadmap from our good friend Ted Pattison. Ted also kicks off the first of a two part presentation on Creating Portal Applications.

We also take a look at the 2007 version of Excel including the new Excel Server Components. Click here for the Demo. There is a lot to cover in Excel 2007 and we go into more depth with Excel Server in our Security and Business Intelligence issue scheduled for September.

Finally as part of our executive interview series, Doug Mahugh talks to Kurt DelBene Corporate VP of Office Server Group about SharePoint V3. Click here for the Interview

Our next edition should occur after the general release of 2007 Office system Beta 2. You'll be pleased to hear that as a subscriber to this newsletter we'll email you as soon as the beta software is available.

By that time you will have had the chance to download the bits and build environments of your own to experiment with, so in our next edition we will bring you more detailed examples with sample code you can try out.

Ian Moulster

Developer & Platform Group
Microsoft UK

Hungry for Data – RSS support in Windows Vista

With more than 60 million blogs out there, chances are that you are reading what is going on in the blogosphere. MSN spaces alone host more than 14 million blogs.

To help you to take advantage of this weblog phenomenon the Internet Explorer team has included an RSS reader in the upcoming version 7 of Internet Explorer (IE). Internet Explorer 7 actually builds on top of the new Windows RSS Platform API, and you can use that same platform to build RSS into your applications.

Included as standard in Windows Vista, and bundled with Internet Explorer 7 when downloaded for XP, this new platform makes it easier than ever for developers to take advantage of RSS technology. Feeds can be used as a versatile notification and distribution mechanism - for any kind of data including multimedia files.

The RSS platform includes extensions to RSS to help with the transport and consumption of structured data such as lists. These 'Simple List Extensions' make it easy for example to publish a 'top 10' list of items from your site to be consumed, and provide more sophisticated options for sorting and categorising data. This works equally well in RSS 2.0 and Atom Feeds.
Read more about Programming RSS in Windows Vista!

RSS Links
Integrate Data: An overview of RSS in Windows Vista
RSS in Windows Vista
The IE Team Blog
Simple List Extension Specification
Windows Vista RSS Platform API Reference
Windows Vista RSS Platform API Documentation on MSDN

2007 Microsoft Office system

Office 2007 client presents developers with new an exciting opportunities to create applications with a compelling user experience. The new Ribbon Interface presents end users with friendly and context sensitive navigation options and Customisation options provide the developers with the tools to add custom controls, and thus enhance the user experience.
To learn more about the Office 2007 User Interface click here!!

On March 21, 2006 Bill Gates, Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect, debuted many of the new development possibilities afforded by the 2007 Office system to an audience of professional developers attending the Office Developer Conference. See what Bill and Office Servers VP, Kurt Delbene had to say about developing on the 2007 Office system. .

Want the inside track on what the Microsoft Office development teams are up to? Read their thoughts on everything from the new Office user interface to file formats to SharePoint. Check out the Office Developer Center blogs!

Internet Explorer 7 and RSS

Download Internet Explorer 7

Download and evaluate the newest, layout-complete build of the Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview and explore the improvements in security, user interface, and development platform.

RSS Feeds

Internet Explorer 7 automatically detects RSS feeds on sites by illuminating an icon on the toolbar. A single click on the icon allows you to preview and optionally subscribe to the site's RSS feed, and then be automatically notified as content is updated. Read RSS feeds directly in the browser, scan for important stories, and filter your view with search terms or site-specific categories.

RSS Platform

Internet Explorer 7 provides rich functionality for downloading, storing, and accessing RSS feeds across the entire operating system, and enables more users than ever before to embrace RSS. Once a feed is subscribed to in one application, that subscription, and all the associated content, will be made available across the operating system for any application that wishes to consume it.

Visit the Internet Explorer blog to learn and discuss the latest issues concerning Internet Explorer.

Find the latest Internet Explorer 7 developer information and participate in Internet Explorer 7 newsgroups! Click here

Community

Microsoft Code Master Challenge: March 20th - July 31st

Calling all Developers, System builders and ISVs! Build the best new application with Windows Vista to win $50,000 cash! There are no limits to what you can create, and the app is yours to keep or sell. We won’t ever ask for your coding secrets! Learn more

RSS - a revolution in content distribution

Emanuele DelBono is a Software Architect and .NET developer at Managed Designs. He is known as a teacher, author for programming magazines and speaker at technical conferences and workshops.
Read his article on RSS and his blog!

WinFX Tour

The WinFX Tour is coming to the UK. WinFX is our next-generation developer platform and will be released with Windows Vista later this year. Developers that want to build visually stunning and connected applications will be able to use WinFX to differentiate their apps from their competitors and create greater brand awareness. The main components of WinFX are Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF).

Book now for the UK leg of this worldwide tour being held on 10th May 2006 in Reading, Berkshire (free event)

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