Microsoft Office 2013 App Building - ms-office

I've never worked on Office Apps before nor have I ever used an API before.
All I want is to develop an Office App for Microsoft Office 2013. I would like to use Bing Maps or Bing Image Search in it. Can anybody guide me through it.

You can find documentation on how to create Office apps here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/jj220082.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/jj220065.aspx
Since this is just HTML and JavaScript you can easily use the Bing Maps V7 JavaScript control to add maps. You can find documentation here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg427610.aspx
You can also find an interactive SDK here: http://www.bingmapsportal.com/ISDK/AjaxV7#CreateMap1

Related

Is there a simple "hello world" sample Office 365 Excel add-in guide?

Is there a simple "hello world" sample for coding an Office 365 Excel add-in that I can follow and customize?
I am assuming that you would like to build an Excel add-in that can be run in Windows/Mac and Online. So you could use Yeoman generator to build "hello world" sample code easily. The Yeoman generator creates a Node.js project that can be managed with Visual Studio Code or any other editor, whereas Visual Studio creates a Visual Studio solution. Select the tab for the one you'd like to use and then follow the instructions to create your add-in and test it locally.
This article will walk you through the process of building an Excel Taskpane Add-in in Yeoman generator.
You could also explore API capability using Script Lab.
Script Lab is a useful tool for anyone who wants to learn how to develop Office Add-ins using the Office JavaScript API in Excel, Word, or PowerPoint. It provides IntelliSense so you can see what's available and is built on the Monaco framework, the same framework used by Visual Studio Code. Through Script Lab, you can access a library of samples to quickly try out features or you can use a sample as the starting point for your own code. You can even use Script Lab to try preview APIs.
Well it depends on what you mean by an Excel add-in I guess. There are a lot of options here.
If you're talking about a simple add-in written in VBA, which doesn't require any additional tools to get started, there are lots of tutorials available online.
You could take a look at this simple getting started tutorial:
How to Create and Use an Excel Add-in
If you want to know more about there is to developing office (excel) add-ins i'd encourage you to take a look at the developer docs from microsoft:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/add-ins/
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/add-ins/excel/
The nice thing about this approach is that it's designed to be cross-platform and enables you to create add-ins by using web dev technology. If you're more interested in using visual studio and VB.NET / C# I'd start by exploring the VSTO Add-ins route. Start at the docs or use google for getting started tutorials yourself. The VSTO docs can be found here:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/vsto/excel-solutions?view=vs-2019
Or jump right in and start here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/vsto/walkthrough-creating-your-first-vsto-add-in-for-excel?view=vs-2019
There are three common ways to create an Excel 365 JavaScript Add-in:
(1) You could use the Yeoman Generator (with Visual Studio Code)
(2) You could use the Office Templates (with Visual Studio 2019)
(3) You could use NPM and Webpack (with Notepad)
You can find simple "Hello World" examples of all three here:
https://bettersolutions.com/javascript/excel-api/index.htm

In search of material to learn how to develop UWP apps using Visual C++

where can I learn to make UWP apps using visual c++.The only resource I've found shows how to make a 'Hello World' app. This is insufficient because I want to make an app that has multiple pages and utilizes custom classes.
To develop UWP apps, the official channel is the official document: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/uwp/
Depending on your requirements, you need to use the appropriate APIs in your app.
For the specific API, there's specific code sample for your reference. You could get the demos from GitHub: https://github.com/Microsoft/Windows-universal-samples
If you want a complete project to learn how to develop a UWP app. There's an existing open source project MS-Calculator. It's UWP app and developed by c++ language.

Office VSTO Add-ins vs Office Add-ins using Office JS API

Recently Microsoft introduced the Office Add-ins architecture which allows for developing add-ins hosted remotely and run within IFrames inside office. I have read a lot trying to understand whether this architecture is meant as a replacement for VSTO or do they have separate use-cases. VS 2015 has templates for both.
In my specific case, I want to develop an add-in that extends Excel 2016 with custom import functionality (e.g. custom CSVs, TSV, or even XLSX). I can't tell which type of project I should go with.
Given the amount of legacy applications developed as COM and VSTO add-ins I find it hard to believe Microsoft would drop support within the next 10 years.
For me the most important differentiators of one approach vs. the other are:
COM/VSTO Office add-ins
Access to complete object model
Local machine interaction, e.g. file system
Available on Windows since Office 2007
JavaScript Office Add-ins
Portable between Windows, OS X, iOS etc. (not complete everywhere yet though)
Easy integration with online services
Easy distribution, no need to worry about installers
In your case I'd ask myself these questions:
Will there be a need to support other platforms besides Windows in the future? > JavaScript API
Are the requirements covered by the current JavaScript API implementation?
I've found that VSTO isn't 100% implemented either. I've given up developing VSTO for Project, got hit by too many issues. Instead I've developed everything in VBA and have perfected some neat ways to install, distribute and update VBA macros.

Xamarin licensing issue (can I use specific component)

I saw this SO question asking for a PDF viewer for MonoTouch, which is just what I need. First I tried the Xamarin code sample suggested by poupou, but this needs a lot of extra work to use. So I decided to try the mTouch-PDFViewer suggested by Alex.
So I went to the download page and on to the GitHub for this component and cloned the repository. The problem is that the Visual Studio solution opens with a message saying I need a different license for Xamarin than I have. I only have a Xamarin Indie license and am therefore not able to build this library.
Is there a way around this? If I copied all the code into the Xamarin Studio, would it work then or can't I use this component at all due to licensing problems? Will it work in the app as long as I get hold of the dll file or do I need the more expensive license?
I have sent an email to the support email address for the mTouch-PDFViewer asking if the dll is available somewhere, but I was wondering in general if the licensing limits the use of dlls or just the ability to compile the code.
Indie license does not have Visual Studio support. An Indie license requires you to use Xamarin Studio on a Mac. There should not be any restrictions on using specific components.
Also, for basic PDF viewing, iOS has excellent built in support, which you might try before using a 3rd party component.

OPENXML SDK VS Microsoft Platform Interop Assemblies

I have a requirement where in I need to scan Office documents and remove any metadata found embedded in the file/document. I am new to developing applications on Microsoft Office and found that I could either use the Platform Interop Assemblies or the OPENXML SDK to work with Office docs (word, excel and powerpoint).
However, I couldnt find any source/link which explains the difference between PIA and OPENXML. Could anyone please explain as to when which option needs to be looked at and which one is easy to work with (ie., less effort on learning curve)?
The huge problem with PIA is you will be dealing with COM interops unmanaged environment.
Here are the differences

Resources