VSTO: Enable ribbon button only when a document is loaded

Question

How does one set a ribbon button in a Word add-in to be enabled when a document is loaded and disabled when no documents are loaded, just Like most of the built-in buttons?

Answer 1

Interesting, my VSTO Contrib project (http://vstocontrib.codeplex.com/documentation) has some features which make ribbon management simpler.

The cleanest way is to use my ribbon factory, but the project will need to be updated to disable buttons if there are no viewmodels to query for the status of the button. In fact it is a scenario I havent really covered.

You have 3 parts an add-in is interested in, the view (window), the context (the document) and the ribbon. VSTO Contrib means you get a view model per context, and it manages/abstracts the ribbon and view so it appears you have a ribbon per context, and it tells you the current active view (for multiple windows showing same document scenarios). The missing part is if there is a ribbon, but no contexts and no viewmodels, it should invalidate that ribbon control and disable it. It should be a pretty simple change, email me if you are interested in giving VSTO Contrib's RibbonFactory a spin and I can make this change for you.