Addin Menus in Lotus Notes using MFC/NotesAPI

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Introduction

This is a simple dll program that is used to add menus in Lotus Notes Action Menu using Lotus Notes C API 4.6.2.

Using the code

Menu Add-in funtions in NotesAPI allow you to customize the Notes Actions menu, so that users can run your API programs by selecting one of the menu items added. This will take you through a step by step procedure on how to create a Notes AddinMenu dll.

Run the VC New Projects wizard. Select MFC AppWizard(dll) and specify a project name as MenuAddin (for eg.). Cick on OK to proceed to the other dialogs and check the Regular Dll with MFC statically linked option in the wizard.

Step 2: Workspace Settings

1. Go to Project Settings (ALT+F7). In the C/C++ tab in preprocessor definitions, add 'NT' or 'W32' at the end of the preprocessor list. 2. In the Link tab. In General, in Output file name, specify [NOTESPATH]\MenuAddin.dll. [NOTESPATH] is the path in which Notes executable resides your system. For eg. it would be Drive:\Lotus\Notes. 3. For Object/Library modules, enter notes.lib in the field. 4. Go to Tools->Options Menu. In the Directories Tab, select Include files and specify the path of the Notes API Include Directory. For eg. in my case it was D:\Notes C API 4.6\INCLUDE. 5. Select Library files and specify the path for the Lib files for your OS. For eg. in my case it was D:\Notes C API 4.6\LIB\MSWIN32.

Step 3: Coding

Ok now we got the whole environment setup. Lets begin the coding part of it. There are 2 header files that need to be included for this dll to compile.

#include <global.h>
#include <addinmen.h> 

extern "C" NAMRESULT LNCALLBACK ActionsMenuProc(WORD wMsg, PVOID pParam)

wMsg indicates an addin menu operation and pParam will contain specific information, depending on the value of wMsg.

There are 4 possible messages that are sent from the Notes Workstation to the DLL. These messages are defined in addinmen.h. They are NAMM_INIT,NAMM_INITMENU,NAMM_COMMAND and NAMM_TERM. Complete reference on these message types will be available in the Notes API Reference. The Complete code for the ActionMenuProc will be as follows:

WORD gwStartingID;

extern "C" NAMRESULT LNCALLBACK ActionsMenuProc(WORD wMsg, PVOID pParam)
{ 
    // This function is called three times. 
    // 1. to init/to get the menu item name.
    // 2. to enable/disable menu based on the context
    //    like view,doc,workspace
    // 3. to do the actual command work.
    switch (wMsg)
    {
    case NAMM_INIT:
        // Set up the new addin menu items
        {
            NAM_INIT_INFO*  pInitInfo;
            pInitInfo = (NAM_INIT_INFO *) pParam;

            // Save the starting ID of the First item appended to menu
            if (pInitInfo->wMenuItemNumber == 0)
                /* first time through */
                gwStartingID = pInitInfo->wStartingID;

            // Give Notes our menu id 
            pInitInfo->wMenuID = IDS_MENU_NAME;

            // Give Notes our menu item name
            CString strAppName;
            strAppName.LoadString(IDS_MENU_NAME);          
            _tcscpy(pInitInfo->MenuItemName, (LPCSTR)strAppName);
            return (NAM_INIT_STOP);
        }
    case NAMM_INITMENU:
        // Called each time Action Menu is dropped down
        {

            NAM_INITMENU_INFO*  pInitMenuInfo;
            WORD                wFlags;

            pInitMenuInfo = (NAM_INITMENU_INFO *) pParam;
            wFlags = MF_ENABLED | MF_BYCOMMAND;

            // Set Menu Item State 
            EnableMenuItem(pInitMenuInfo->hMenu, gwStartingID
                + IDS_MENU_NAME, wFlags);

        }

        return (NAM_NOERROR);
    case NAMM_COMMAND:
        // Called when user clicks the Menu Item
        {
            // do the actual command work here
            CString strAppName;
            strAppName.LoadString(IDS_APP_NAME);
            AfxMessageBox("Menu Item Clicked",IDS_APP_NAME,MB_OK);

            return (NAM_NOERROR);
        }
    case NAMM_TERM:
    default:
        return (NAM_NOERROR);
    }
}

Description

    NAM_INIT_INFO*  pInitInfo;
    pInitInfo = (NAM_INIT_INFO *) pParam;

    // Save the starting ID of the First item appended to menu
    if (pInitInfo->wMenuItemNumber == 0)    /* first time through */
        gwStartingID = pInitInfo->wStartingID;

    // Give Notes our menu id 
        pInitInfo->wMenuID = IDS_MENU_NAME;

.....

    _tcscpy(pInitInfo->MenuItemName, (LPCSTR)strAppName);

Each time the Action Menu item is selected in Lotus Notes, the message NAMM_INITMENU is sent to the DLL. This is where we enable, disable, check or gray the add-in menu items. This is done through the NAM_INITMENU_INFO structure.

NAM_INITMENU_INFO*  pInitMenuInfo;
WORD                wFlags;

pInitMenuInfo = (NAM_INITMENU_INFO *) pParam;
wFlags = MF_ENABLED | MF_BYCOMMAND;

// Set Menu Item State
EnableMenuItem(pInitMenuInfo->hMenu, gwStartingID
    + IDS_MENU_NAME, wFlags);

When a user selects a add-in menu item from the Actions menu, the NAMM_COMMAND is sent to the DLL for processing. The DLL populates the NAM_COMMAND_INFO structure. From the structure, you can proceed with calling functions and other API programs that are appropriate to the menu item selected. For this example I have not populated the NAM_COMMAND_INFO structure because we are creating only one add-in menu. In cases where we are adding more than one add-in menu, the structure values can be used to determine which one of the add-in menus was invoked.

After all the processing is done in NAMM_COMMAND it should always return NAM_NOERROR.

Configuring Notes

AddinMenus = [<drive>]:[<directory>\<addname1.dll>,
    [<drive>]:[<directory>\<addname2.dll>
    ...

AddinMenus = MenuAddin.dll