14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has updated the documentation designed to offer developers the Office Outlook 2010 Messaging API (MAPI) Reference, namely the messaging architecture for Outlook 2010. The Redmond-company has, in this regard, refreshed the content it is making available for devs via MSDN. At the same time, the Microsoft Download Center is offering for download the August 2009 Technical Preview of Outlook 2010 MAPI Reference. Microsoft has underlined that all the documentation offered at this point in time is preliminary, as Office 2010 is still in development, and that content is subject to change.
“This release includes documentation for the binary stream structure for the PidLidPropertyDefinitionStream property. This property specifies definitions of all custom fields and data-binding settings for built-in fields of an Outlook item,” revealed a programmability writer for Outlook. “There is now a code sample in How to: Check the Version of Outlook that shows how to check version information of an installed version of Microsoft Outlook, if the installed version is Outlook 2010, Outlook 2007, or Outlook 2003. The code sample also returns a pointer to a Boolean variable that indicates whether a 64-bit version of Outlook is installed.”
With the availability of Office Outlook 2010 MAPI Reference, Microsoft is attempting to streamline the work of developers, making it easier to build messaging apps that leverage the next iteration of the Office Outlook email client. In this regard, the Redmond-based company is offering a collection of interfaces, but also functions, and other data types, necessary for third-party programs to manipulate email information, and even to put together messages, as well as folders for storage.
According to Microsoft, the latest release of the Outlook 2010 MAPI Reference offers devs a documentation focused on a few MAPI updates, including “64-bit Outlook support, fast shutdown support for MAPI clients, a stream structure for field definitions for an Outlook item, an additional 38 tagged properties and named properties, and the option to link explicitly to MAPI functions.”
In addition to delivering the Office Outlook 2010 MAPI Reference, Microsoft is also allowing developers to access the MAPI provider code samples for Outlook 2010. Devs will be able to grab the samples at the Outlook 2010 MAPI Code Samples Web site, and to benefit from 64-bit MAPI support.