I wrote a Word 2003 add-in that uses the 2003 PIAs for early-binding. I want the same executable to support the Ribbon interface in Office 2007 and 2010, while still running in Office 2003.
Is it possible to late-bind the IRibbonExtensibility interface? If not, is there another way to dynamically differentiate between Office versions?
There's a good book on working with the ribbon UI in Office:
RibbonX: Customizing the Office 2007 Ribbon
Robert Martin, Ken Puls, Teresa Hennig
The authors and MS both suggest a trick along these lines for solving this problem:
When your add-in loads, it queries the app to find out what version it's running in.
If Office 2003, it creates a normal CommandBars 'n Buttons UI.
If Office 2007 or later, it looks for another add-in and demand-loads it. This second add-in contains just the RibbonX code to create your ribbon UI plus handlers for the button click events. The handler simply calls back to the main add-in.
With a little clever use of tags in your RibbonXML and handler, you can have a single handler work out which routine in the main add-in to call.
Related
The search function is used in EXCEL to search for the specified menu command.
like this
[1]: https://i.stack.imgur.com/rJTOX.png
If the button developed by VSTO needs to implement an interface, it can be searched.
This interface forgets which I am.
MSDN can't find it, let me know if you know, thank you
Unfortunately not all features of the ribbon are available for developers. The Fluent UI (aka Ribbon UI) doesn't provide anything for that. You can find the definitive list of controls and customizations described in the following series of articles in MSDN:
Customizing the 2007 Office Fluent Ribbon for Developers (Part 1 of 3)
Customizing the 2007 Office Fluent Ribbon for Developers (Part 2 of 3)
Customizing the 2007 Office Fluent Ribbon for Developers (Part 3 of 3)
Nothing has been changed since Office 2007.
You may try using the Accessibility API to automate tasks related to the user interface in Office applications.
I'm trying to mess around with some dashboard/BI tools since Power BI is no longer free and stumbled upon Power Query/Power Pivot as a potential solution.
I installed Power Query (x32) and am since unable to load excel 2010 when the add-in is enabled. When I disable the add-in Excel opens with no issues. When I re-enable the add-in Excel hangs for a brief moment and then crashes.
I'm running on a 64-bit Windows 7 machine with a 32 bit Excel 2010 installation.
Any thoughts as to what could be going on here?
Edit: Many of my coworkers are having a similar issue so it may be something corporate-wide.
I previously had that scenario at one client, and it turned out to be a clash with a specific Add-In - ironically Microsoft's Data Mining Add-In (for SQL 2008 R2).
I suggest first turning on the Developer Main Tab in your Excel ribbon (for convenience) and then using it's Excel Add-ins and COM Add-ins buttons to disable all other Add-ins besides Power Query.
BTW performance of Power Query on Excel 2010 is truly woeful compared to Excel 2016 (where PQ is also built in, not an add-in).
BTW2 Power BI Desktop and a personal powerbi.com account are both still free.
All the questions/answers I have seen so far are old and do not provide a definitive answer.
Also what can I use locally and what can I use online?
what can I use locally and what can I use online?
You may use your VSTO and VBA add-ins for Office Desktop application on Windows.
Office applications on Web (online) has extensibility via Office.js API. Microsoft current name is "Office Add-ins", you may try them by loading into your Office application (excel) from Office Store. If you want to develop add-in based on this technology I would suggest to start over here: Office Add-ins platform overview. The conception behind of this technology is "build once, use everywhere where Office runs". That means your add-in may work for Office Desktop on Windows, Office Desktop on Mac, Online versions as well as some mobile platforms (subject to availability)
I have a VSTO Excel 2010 workbook project, and it works on all PCs except one. The additional custom user control isn't present on the workbook. I've noticed that exceptions in C# are suppressed, and I haven't found where they can be viewed. Is there such thing as Excel error log? How do I turn on all error messages?
There are (2) error log sources that office uses when errors occur. "Microsoft Office Diagnostics" and "Microsoft Office Sessions". You can try to use these to troubleshoot.
Office 2010
You can enable interface error dialogs by going to File->Options->Advanced->Developers and checking "Show Add-in user interface errors".
Office 2007
You can enable interface error dialogs by going to Tools->Options->Other->General->Advanced Options and checking "Show Add-in user interface errors".
There is also an option to enable logging (unsure of its behavior)
I have a couple of Excel Add ins. If I move to Office 365, will these add ins be available ? Is there any development support(VSTO) for Office 365 ?
I to have been curious about the answer to this, so went looking online. From the following site, I'd say the answer is no. It looks like developing for Office 365 is more along the lines of SharePoint development.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/donovanf/archive/2011/06/29/office-365-developer-guidance-and-resources.aspx
I have seen advertisements online for products such as this... http://www.ocxt.com/products that look like they could provide a possible solution for taking a vsto application to the web.
I think things have moved on substantially since this question was asked. Microsoft seem to be fully committed to the Add-in approach with Office 2013 and the equivalent VSTO tooling available in VS2012.
The Office Dev Center home page has Office 2013 and VSTO Add-ins written all over it.
This MSDN Blog Post also clearly shows Add-ins are still part of the strategy.
Until the full capabilities of Desktop MS Office are available in a browser, I can't see this situation changing.
If you mean Office 365 installed on client PC then there is no issue with VSTO Add-ins. Our Chem4Word Add-in is using Office 2010 VSTO and happily works with 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, O365.
If you mean Office 365 on-line then you have to redesign them using the Office 365 Javascript API