From the category archives:

VSTO

VSTO in Visual Studio 2010

November 22, 2008Main

One of the biggest hurdles with VSTO is deployment.
As you probably know, the pre-requisites for running a VSTO app (even of the simplest Hello World variety) include:

.NET Framework 3.5
Primary Interop Assemblies (PIAs)
VSTO Runtime
(Plus Office of course)

Now, packaging these isn’t the issue, since the Visual Studio team have worked hard to [...]

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Last weekend I presented at Office DevCon on the topic of VSTO for VBA developers.
This is an interesting use case because you essentially have a group of very experienced, highly productive developers, all extremely familiar with their technology. So my aim was to look at how Microsoft is supporting this community (as opposed to say [...]

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VSTO on stackoverflow

November 21, 2008Main

I don’t know if you’ve been spending much time on stackoverflow lately, but if you are you’ll know it’s a kind of addictive experience. There’s all types of developer questions on there. The tagging structure is neat and allows you to easily keep track of certain topics.
There’s a growing list of VSTO related questions there, [...]

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Office Development with VS Dev Center – the home of VSTO

November 21, 2008Community

Thanks to Beth Massi for alerting us to this – the Office Development with Visual Studio Developer Center has been launched. This is where the http://msdn.com/vsto URL will now take you to.
[This isn’t to be confused with the Office Developer Center (another excellent resource by the way), since that is open to all office development [...]

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Software Craftsmanship

November 13, 2008Developers

My good friend and colleague at Elcom, Angus McDonald (aka Falkayn), and I have been chatting about ways to improve the software processes at work. He’s taking over many of the responsibilities I’ve held – now that I’m moving on – and is a considered thinker.
Angus is much more Agile focussed than me, and [...]

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Office DevCon – 15-16 November 2008 – Sydney, Australia

October 15, 2008Community

Yes, Office DevCon is on again. Here’s the details:
Office DevCon is an annual community-driven conference that allows Microsoft Office developers and power users to come together in one location to hear expert speakers present on a wide range of Microsoft Office-related topics.
Come along and discover how to do things you never knew you could do [...]

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VSTO: Visual Studio Tools for Office resources

September 13, 2008Main

This is a follow on from my overview of Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO). If you are interested in learning more then here’s a list of resources.
General VSTO resources

MSDN VSTO Developer Portal
Start here. [...]

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VSTO: Access Add-ins?

September 12, 2008Link

I get a few emails each week from people asking about various VSTO related scenarios. I can usually point them to a related MSDN forum entry or blog post, or even (on a good day!) solve it for them myself.
Interestingly the question of Access add-ins has come up a few times lately, so I thought [...]

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VSTO: Deployment via SharePoint

August 29, 2008Main

Deploying a Word document level VSTO add-in via SharePoint
Actually, more correctly, we are going to deploy via ClickOnce but deliver via SharePoint.
This the second demo on VSTO deployment, and follows on from my previous post about VSTO deployment via ClickOnce.
It covers building a very simple Word document level add-in, deploying to a network share, uploading [...]

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VSTO: Deployment via ClickOnce screencast

August 29, 2008Main

Deploying an Excel application level VSTO add-in via ClickOnce
If you are new to VSTO deployment then this simple little screencast (just under 14 mins) may help. It covers the scenario of deploying an application level add-in via ClickOnce to a network share, and then the experience a user would have installing it.
TechEd 2008 – Session [...]

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What’s changed in Visual Studio 2008 SP1?

August 17, 2008Link

Maarten van Stam has a nice tip for isolating specific changes made in SP1. Check out his post here, or just run this search and you’ll see the list of 902 pages worth of doco changes.
You can then narrow that further by selecting one of the one of the Refinement options:

Refining by Visual Studio [...]

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VSTO: Visual Studio 2008 SP1 and Outlook Add-in issues

August 16, 2008Main

By now I’m assuming most of you have downloaded and installed Service Pack 1 for Visual Studio 2008. For those who haven’t here’s a few links you may want to note:
Before installation
If you’ve installed any hot fixes over the last few months you should clean them up first
Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack Preparation Tool (14 [...]

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VSTO: Harry Miller and the VSTO glasses

August 15, 2008Link

When I first started viewing this video by Harry Miller (on the Microsoft VSTO team) I started to cringe. It seemed a little over the top (and probably clashed with my general sense of Australian humour – sadly to be funny in Australia you usually need to be crude, critical or self-deprecating – just saying…)

But [...]

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CLARITY: Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO)

August 3, 2008Clarity

After chatting with a few people about Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) recently, it’s clear that the technology is not that well understood (even though, in my opinion, Microsoft have done a pretty good job of articulating it – much better than say OBA for example). So in this post I’m aiming to [...]

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VSTO: VBA and VSTO

July 30, 2008Link

As part of my preparation for presenting on VSTO (download slides here) at SBTUG this week I was asked a number of questions about how VBA and VSTO fit together. Things like: Is VSTO the VBA replacement? How do VSTO and VBA fit together? What is the benefit of learning VSTO?
10 million VBA developers?
They’re important [...]

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VSTO: More on VS2008 SP1 enhancements

July 28, 2008Link

More on the upcoming SP1 enhancements for VSTO: Eric Carter delves into some of the finer details, specifically with regard to using Word document level (and Excel workbook level) functionality in Application level add-ins.
Also, in case you weren’t aware of the .NET Framework Client profile, here’s a quick rundown of what is included (thanks [...]

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SBTUG: This Wed 30 July 2008 – Demo Fest, Office Business Applications + VSTO

July 27, 2008Main

This Wednesday at the Sydney Business & Technology User Group (SBTUG) is looking really good with five demos scheduled. Yes, five! And I think we can still squeeze in one more if there’s anyone still undecided…
When: This Wed 30 July 2008

Time: 6pm (until approx 8:30pm)
Where: Microsoft, North Ryde
Contact: Craig Bailey : 0413 489 [...]

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VSTO: VS2008 SP1 enhancements

July 26, 2008Link

I’m putting together the final list of resources for my OBA and VSTO presentation at SBTUG this Wednesday, and I realised there’s plenty of VSTO news that I haven’t linked to of late (here’s my normal VSTO feed if you’re interested). That certainly needs to be remedied, so brace yourself for a few ‘better late [...]

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Visual Basic ‘Learn’ Section continues to improve

May 10, 2008Link

I continue to be impressed with how Microsoft is organising and presenting their online help. The Visual Basic site is a case in point. Beth Massi highlights some of the new features coming whereby you can create your own dynamic lists – ie tailor help to just your area of interest. Neat. But even in [...]

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