Can I control the Office message bar programatically

Question

In Office, a yellow or red message bar is sometimes shown below the ribbon. It is usually red for security related messages, and yellow for information messages.

The screenshot below shows MS Access displaying a typical message bar.

I would like to create a small Word add-on that programatically uses this UI feature. Is that possible? I've searched the MSDN information on customizing Office but can't find any reference on how to do this.

Answer 1

The best answer to my own question so far is to style a custom task pane to look like the yellow panel, and to use DockPositionRestrict to prevent it from being moved. Not marking this as the answer just yet in case anyone knows of something better.

Answer 2

I think, in Office's terms, the message bar is actually called Protected View Window. There is an API for it, ProtectedViewWindow, both available for Word & Excel interop.

Take a look at its properties and methods, it'd be helpful to you.

For example, use ProtectedViewWindow.Caption to add your custom messages.