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Covering the SmartDocuments API at a level that "really worked" would have required a full book of its own. We hoped that providing an example with explanations would demonstrate to readers what was functional and non-functional about the interface. The code does work - the complaint about hard-coded paths is reasonable in that it's not great practice, but it's not a case of code that just never worked.
I have heard from a few people that they were happy to read that chapter, as it dissuaded them from spending a lot more time in that overly complex space, but I can see where someone determined to make SmartDocuments work and seeking information would find it unsatisfactory. As the reviewer notes, of course, no one else dared go even this far.
The good news for now seems to be that Microsoft will be replacing SmartDocuments in Visual Studio 2005 with a much friendlier environment for creating interactive Office applications.
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