Extending Existing Smart Tags in Office

At times, you might want to simply extend the actions of an existing recognizer in Office. For example, you might want to add the ability to look up a user 's manager in Active Directory by adding your own action, called Lookup Manager, to the Person Names smart tag included with Office. Extending a smart tag's action list is easy. All you have to do is create a new action DLL. You don't need to create a new recognizer because the recognizer already exists. In your action DLL, you indicate that your action handles only smart tags of type urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags#PersonName , which is the type emitted by the Person Names recognizer. Table 9-6 lists the smart tag types for the recognizers included with Office.

Table 9-6: Smart Tag Types for Built-In Office Recognizers

Smart Tag Type	Value
Person	urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags#PersonName
Stock Ticker Symbol	urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags# stockticker
Address	urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags#address
Date	urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags#date
Place	urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags#place
Phone Number	urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags#phone
Time	urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags#time

The following code implements a skeleton for extending the Person Names recognizer with new actions:

 Implements ISmartTagAction      Private Property Get ISmartTagAction_ProgId() As String     'Create a language-independent unique identifier for this     'action that corresponds to the ProgID of this DLL.     ISmartTagAction_ProgId = "Extends.PersonNames" End Property      Private Property Get ISmartTagAction_Name( _                      ByVal LocaleID As Long) As String          'Add a short phrase that describes this action provider DLL.     ISmartTagAction_Name = "Extension to Person Names" End Property      Private Property Get ISmartTagAction_Desc( _                      ByVal LocaleID As Long) As String          'Create a longer description of this recognizer.     ISmartTagAction_Desc = "Provides actions for recognized names" End Property      Private Property Get ISmartTagAction_SmartTagCount() As Long     'How many smart tag types will this recognizer recognize?     '1 in this case.     ISmartTagAction_SmartTagCount = 1 End Property      Private Property Get ISmartTagAction_SmartTagName( _                      ByVal SmartTagID As Long) As String          If (SmartTagID = 1) Then         ISmartTagAction_SmartTagName = _             "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags#PersonName"     End If End Property      Private Property Get ISmartTagAction_SmartTagCaption( _                      ByVal SmartTagID As Long, _                      ByVal LocaleID As Long) As String          'Action DLLs specify the caption for smart tags.     ISmartTagAction_SmartTagCaption = "Custom Action" End Property      Private Property Get ISmartTagAction_VerbCount( _                      ByVal SmartTagName As String) As Long          'For a given smart tag type, how many verbs do we support?     If (SmartTagName = _         "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags#PersonName") Then         ISmartTagAction_VerbCount = 1     End If End Property      Private Property Get ISmartTagAction_VerbID( _                      ByVal SmartTagName As String, _                      ByVal VerbIndex As Long) As Long          If (SmartTagName = _         "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags#PersonName") Then         ISmartTagAction_VerbID = VerbIndex     End If End Property      Private Property Get ISmartTagAction_VerbCaptionFromID( _                      ByVal VerbID As Long, _                      ByVal ApplicationName As String, _                      ByVal LocaleID As Long) As String          Select Case VerbID         Case 1             ISmartTagAction_VerbCaptionFromID = "Custom Action"     End Select End Property      Private Property Get ISmartTagAction_VerbNameFromID( _                      ByVal VerbID As Long) As String          Select Case VerbID         Case 1             ISmartTagAction_VerbNameFromID = "CustomAction"     End Select End Property      Public Sub ISmartTagAction_InvokeVerb( ByVal VerbID As Long, _            ByVal ApplicationName As String, ByVal Target As Object, _            ByVal Properties As SmartTagLib.ISmartTagProperties, _            ByVal Text As String, ByVal XML As String)          Select Case VerbID         Case 1             'Implement functionality here     End Select End Sub