14 DAY TRIAL // While having produced an extremely complex product, Microsoft is also permitting developers to leverage Office as a platform. The next iteration of the productivity suite makes no exception to this rule. In fact, the Redmond company is already hard at work trying to simplify the development process associated with developing programs running on top of Office 2010. In this regard, the software giant has launched the Office 2010 Developer Atlas. Aimed at devs that want to become familiar with the next iteration of the Microsoft productivity suite as a platform, the Office 2010 Developer Atlas is essentially a collection of free training resources.
“The Office Developer Atlas interactive training tool (built using Silverlight technology) is a great way for you to come up to speed on what developing productivity solutions with Office is all about. We've called it an atlas because it's designed to give you a series of training segments that help you orient yourself in the world of Office development,” revealed John Durant, program manager for Visual Studio Tools for Office.
The new tool will be particularly appealing to developers that are just now starting to build on top of Office. The self-training Office 2010 development content is hosted by John Durant, and offers a modular strategy when it comes down to presenting Office 2010 development. Content offered to developers includes videos, screen shots, samples, etc. At this point in time, there are only three modules for Office 2010, but the promise from the Redmond company is that more are following.
“The first three segments that we have included in the initial release of Office Developer Atlas include: 1) Making users instantly productive through VBA; 2) The Microsoft Office Backstage view; 3) The Microsoft Office Fluent UI (Ribbon). In each section, you'll find a short explanatory video, an example that demonstrates the kinds of solutions you can build with the targeted technology, and links to rich content on how to convert your awareness to technical skill,” Durant added.
Office 2010 Beta 14.0.4536.1000 is available for download here.