Event for RibbonTab click in Excel Addin

Question

Hi,
I am working on an Excel Addin. I am using VS 2008 and Excel 2007.
Currently my addin gets loaded on opening of Excel. Since i have a dropdown in the Ribbon, even that gets loaded on openeing of Excel. And since that loading of dropdown takes time, i wanted to change this behavior. I wanted to load my Addin on click of the
Ribbon Tab. For this i wanted to know how to fire the event on click of Ribbon Tab.
Usually ThisAddIn_Startup() is the method that's fired first when excel is opened. But i want to call this method in the event of Click of Ribbon Tab. Is this possible?
basically i want to capture click event of Ribbon Tab.
Can someone please help me on this.
Regards,
Shailendra

Answer 1

Hi ,
Here's a short sample for you, as Cindy mentioned there's no "click event" for a Ribbon tab, so we need to pick Dropdown list instead.
The idea is when Excel starts we add a button in Dropdown list, if user click the button, then refresh the Dropdown list,fill it with the real data, and also hide the button at same time:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>  
<customUI xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2006/01/customui" onLoad="Ribbon_Load">  
  <ribbon> 
    <tabs > 
      <tab idMso="TabAddIns"  > 
        <group id="MyGroup"   
               label="My Group">  
          <dropDown id="myDropDown" onAction="dropDownAction" getEnabled="dropDownGetEnabled" getItemLabel="ItemLabel" getItemCount="ItemCount"  > 
            <button id="mybutton" label="Button" onAction ="ReDraw" showImage="false" getVisible="getButtonVisible"/>  
          </dropDown> 
        </group> 
      </tab> 
    </tabs> 
  </ribbon> 
</customUI> 
  bool ButtonVisible = true;  
        int itemCount = 0;  
        public void Ribbon_Load(Office.IRibbonUI ribbonUI)  
            this.ribbon = ribbonUI;  
        public void ReDraw(Office.IRibbonControl RibbonControl)  
            this.ButtonVisible = false;  
            this.itemCount = 9;  
            ribbon.InvalidateControl("myDropDown");  
            ribbon.InvalidateControl("mybutton");  
        public void dropDownAction(Microsoft.Office.Core.IRibbonControl control, string selectedId, int selectedIndex)  
        public bool dropDownGetEnabled(Office.IRibbonControl RibbonControl)  
            return true;  
        public string ItemLabel(Office.IRibbonControl control, int index)  
            return "Item " + index.ToString();  
        public int ItemCount(Office.IRibbonControl control)  
            return this.itemCount;  
        public bool getButtonVisible(Office.IRibbonControl RibbonControl)  
            return this.ButtonVisible;  
For more information about InvalidateControl method :
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa433553.aspx
Thanks