Working with Office Server Extensions

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When you install Microsoft Office 2000, the Discuss command is added to the Explorer Bar submenu of the View menu in Internet Explorer 5. This feature lets you add threaded discussions to a Web page that appear when the page is viewed in Internet Explorer. Threaded discussions are comments added to the page or to an element on the page that can be seen and responded to by others who share the same discussion server.

To enable discussions, you point to Explorer Bar on the View menu, and then click Discuss. In addition, a WebDiscussions command is added to the OnlineCollaboration submenu of the Tools menu in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Clicking the Discuss command in Internet Explorer, or the Web Discussions command any of the listed Office applications, displays the Discussions toolbar at the bottom of the application window. The version of the Discussions toolbar that is displayed in Internet Explorer 5 is shown in Figure 12.10.

Figure 12.10 The Discussions Toolbar as It Is Displayed in Internet Explorer 5

You can use the commands on this toolbar to add a discussion server, specify what information will be displayed for a discussion, or subscribe to a particular Web page, Office document on a Web server, or folder on a Web server. Subscribing to an item lets you specify when and how you will be notified of changes to the item.

You use the Microsoft Office Server Extensions 1.0 object library to programmatically work with discussion servers or discussions on a page. The Office Server Extensions object library contains objects, methods, and properties you can use to create and work with discussions on a page. The following sections provide the information you need to work with discussions by using VBA code.