LiquidFiles Documentation
LiquidFiles Documentation

Customizing Outlook Plugin's Ribbon

Outlook Plugin has hardcoded Ribbon XML elements. However, it is possible to supply arbitrary XML fragments instead of hardcoded Ribbon XML. Therefore you can configure Ribbon in whatever way required, hiding and showing elements, overriding captions and tooltips, and even supplying your own pictures.

To do that, you need to create folder under %AppData%\LiquidFiles\RibbonXML.V3 and put there Ribbon files, downloaded from here.

File names for overriding specific ribbons
Main ribbon/Explorer: Inline Reply Microsoft.Outlook.Explorer.xml
Composing new email in popup window (Inspector) Microsoft.Outlook.Mail.Compose.xml

Names of XML files correspond to Ribbon IDs.

The folder must also contain any referenced files, such as

<button id="LiquidFiles_button_OptionAttach_wrapped_wrapped" size="large" label="Overriden Option" image="image.png" />

This XML fragment creates a button with label "Overriden Option" and image "image.png". File "image.png" must be in the same folder. For the best visual results, image must be PNG, with transparent background, 32x32 for large buttons and 16x16 for small buttons.

Configuration

A few samples for ribbon of V2 can be downloaded from here.

Please read readme.txt in that archive to get started. Although the ribbon of V3 contains new elements, the principles of changes are the same.

To learn Ribbon XML schema, please read Customizing the 2007 Office Fluent Ribbon for Developers article.

Distribution

Add RibbonXML.V3 folder to the shared resource folder or ZIP file, as discussed in localization guide. The RibbonXML.V3 folder must be at the same level as Resources.V3 folder. You can distribute RibbonXML.V3 only without Resources.V3 if you do not change any resources under Resources.V3.

Known issues

  • As of Beta 3.0.8, Appointment ribbon is not currently supported.
  • You must set all attributes on Groups explicitly, including label attribute.
  • IDs of SplitButton are the same across the 3 ribbon files - therefore, making 3 different contents of SplitButton on the ribbons with inherited properties is not officially supported.

However you might be able to make it work by specifying all explicit attributes for splitbutton, while supplying different IDs (including Image and Caption)