Inspect the loading from the beginning to debug an Excel add-in - ms-office

I have an Excel add-in in AppSource. It has a bug: sometimes, when the add-in is launched via its button on Ribbon for the first time, the first page cannot be well loaded (thus there is just a blanc taskpane). Clicking on the button once again loads well the add-in.
I want to see how files are loaded while the add-in is being launched for the first time, and follow this method to debug:
Then, open the Office application and sideload your add-in.
Right-click the add-in and you should see an Inspect Element option in
the context menu. Select that option and it will pop the Inspector,
where you can set breakpoints and debug your add-in.
The problem of this approach is that we can only trigger the "Inspect Element" when the loading has finished. Then in the Network tab, we see all the files have already been loaded with no further information (e.g., time, size). This approach does not allow me to inspect the loading from the beginning:
Does anyone have a better way or better tool?

Have you tried typing window.location.reload() in the Console and pressing enter? At least on Windows, I have found this to be a very useful debugging technique for diagnosing issues that happen during the taskpane launch -- and it feels like it should force the JS files to be reloaded as well, for the scenario you're looking for.

Related

How to create an add-on and share it with other people?

I have created a few macros with the help of this community the last week, but now I am going to be off work for some time, therefore I need to hand my work over but for that people will need access to my macros. I have created a custom tab for myself that contains all my macros and they only need to follow instructions and click on them in theory.
I however, had issues creating that add-in. I have created the .xlam file but even though people select and load it my macros won't appear, neither at the developer -> Macros tab, nor my tab will appear. The only way for them to run my macros if the add-in is loaded if they go into the visual basic window and run it from there, but I don't want them to do that as I want to protect that with a password eventually.
If somebody has got a solution and willing to help, thanks in advance.
Into the Visual Basic window, you can import your .xlam file with Tools > References > Browse. Now, you should see your file into the Project Explorer of Visual Basic.
Hope this help !
There are couple of different ways you can install an Excel .xlam add-in.
Method One
Save the add-in Excel's start-up folder. Any Excel files saved in this folder are automatically loaded when Excel starts. To view the start-up path:
Open the Visual Basic window.
Open the Immediate Window (Ctrl + G or View >> Immediate Window).
Type ? Application.StartupPath.
You can also change the start-up path:
Click File >> Excel Options >> Advanced.
Under General, in the At Startup, open all files in box, type the full path of the folder that you want to use as the alternate startup folder.
Method Two
You can install the add-in directly:
Click File >> Options >> Add-ins
Pick Excel Add-ins from the manage drop-down (near the bottom of the screen).
Press Go >> Browse...
Navigate to the .xlam add-in you want to use.

Excel-Add-in-ASPNET-QuickBooks sample from github not loading in Excel

I have just downloaded and unzipped and followed the "change your IDs" part of the add-in steps here https://github.com/OfficeDev/Excel-Add-in-ASPNET-QuickBooks
When I try to load it by pressing F5 (Start Debug), Excel does start, and it looks like it's trying to load in a pane on the right (not a button on the ribbon like I'm expecting?), but it says Loading... for a while and then a red-X pops for a second too fast that I can see/click, but then it goes back to Loading... and my HDD is thrashing..
There are no errors that I can see, but I would like to know what that red-X is, and ultimately have the button show on the ribbon.
I don't have to do an "install" per-se, do I? I think that side pane is doing the install, but failing, and I can't find a log anywhere..
Turns out I needed an Excel update..
I had ProcMon running and tried to analyze minidumps and tried everything else that I could think of..
Still a touch of wonkiness (like having to copy my 32-bit .exe as the 64) but it at least loads in Excel now.

Delete & Reload a "Add in" from Excel (Online & desktop app)

I want to know if there is way to delete/remove "Add-in" i have added in my online excel file (o365),currently I see remove (x) button in excel desktop app and it works like a charm it also has a reload option to just reload any particular "Add-in".
None of the two options (delete & reload)I could find in Online excel version, although for reload a simple f5 is enough,I am having a difficult time figuring out how to disable a addin i added for experimental use,I end up deleting the whole excel file which is very ridiculous,hope I am missing a simple trick and anybody can help me through.
One thing to add to Sudhi's answer: to fully remove an add-in from the document (rather than just make a task-pane invisible, but still keep the underlying application there, and still have it persist its settings and bindings and etc.), you would need to use the Document Inspector: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/remove-hidden-personal-data-microsoft-office/
The only way is to open the document in desktop and remove the add-in. We have a roadmap item to allow closing either through close button or API. Until then I think closing in desktop is the only way.

Debug Excel add-in written by JavaScript API on an existing workbook

I am trying to develop an Excel add-in by using JavaScript API for Excel.
I can already make some samples run, launch debugging under Visual Studio. Every time when i launch debugging, it opens a new workbook of Excel.
However, most of time, I need to debug an add-in on an existing workbook. For instance, here is an add-in sample, which opens a blank workbook and adds blank sheets to it. However, I want it to add blank sheets to an existing (opened) workbook. Does anyone know what I should set to debug it on an existing (opened) workbook? Should I modify some lines of code?
Edit 1:
From http://dev.office.com/docs/add-ins/get-started/create-and-debug-office-add-ins-in-visual-studio
To use an existing document to debug the add-in
In Solution Explorer, choose the add-in project folder.
Note Choose the add-in project and not the web application project.
On the Project menu, choose Add Existing Item.
In the Add Existing Item dialog box, locate and select the document
that you want to add.
Choose the Add button to add the document to your project.
In Solution Explorer, open the shortcut menu for the project, and
then choose Properties.
The property pages for the project appear.
In the Start Document list, choose the document that you added to the
project, and then choose the OK button to close the property pages.
Here is the resulting configuration that you should see:
After that just press F5 (start debugging), and you should be good to go.
~ Michael Zlatkovsky, developer on Office Extensibility team, MSFT
For anyone else running into this same issue (i.e. tying to set up an existing worksheet for debugging) without having to jump through 3 hoops to insert the add-in every time, this worked for me:
Set the Start Document to "New Excel/Word/etc Document"
Hit F5 to start debugging.
The resulting new document will be read-only and it will be in the Debug/Release folder.
Close the document, don't save it.
Copy the document to the folder where your Web Add-In manifest is and renamed it to whatever name you prefer.
Uncheck "Read Only" int the file's properties.
Set the Start Document as described by Michael in his response above.
If you start debug now, the add-in "should" load automatically. If you start without debugging (Ctrl + F5), you should be able to close the document and open it (or a copy of it) from anywhere in the PC and it should load automatically. You can even make changes to your JS code and reload the taskpanes/dialogs and it should take effect.
What did NOT work:
Using a blank start document and saving it after inserting the add-in. Once you save it, it loses its connection to the developer add-in.
If you start any document in debug mode and save it, it will NOT work the next time! If you want to make any changes to it, DO NOT start in debug mode.
I am not sure if any of these quirks are by design or if a Windows/Office update messed it up for me. Regardless, this is a very painful experience compared to developing VSTOs.

Can not edit code in xpages or custom control

I have a problem with Domino Designer since the problem occurs not only in existing xpage and databases, it also happens in newly created databasen and xpages as well as custom controls.
The problem is that when I try to open an xpage or custom control, I will not se any code, or anything but an emppty blank page under the toolbars.
First I thought it could be my screen, then I thought it could be an configuration problem so I reconfigured the notes client and tried again, then I check if I could open the custom controls with the xml editor instead of the xsp editor, and that worked, but I want the xsp editor back.
What is this, a blank page, it seems that it could not render properly, because if I use my keyboard and pressing the space bar, then it ask me if I want to save the changes when closing the custom control by the esc.
Do I have to re-install the client? Or does it exist any configurations for the xsp editor I miss?
BTW, It happens the other day, and when I re-configured my installation it worked, but this time it does not.
Are you looking at the design pane and not the source pane? At the bottom of the blank page, above the properties area there are two tabs, click on the "source" tab.
If that's not the issue, I'm not sure what's going wrong
I did not have time to investigate any further, it must have been the render function of the XSP Editor that was corrupt, stopped working and I re-installed the Notes and Designer and then I could continue working. No problems in my code. :-)

Resources