Office development got you down? Dreaming of OBAs, but just can't seem to get them off the drawing board?
Well, never fear, cos I've got good some good news for you!
If you haven't already heard, Microsoft has released a set of power tools for VSTO/VSTA that greatly speed up the development of Office or VSTA based solutions.
Get 'em here.
It's a set of 9 tools that were announced at the Office Developer Conference (an event I was lucky enough to attend).
Here's a brief summary.
Office Custom UI Manager A set of classes for coordinating multiple instances of Ribbon, custom task pane and custom form region. Office Interop API Extensions A set of C# classes for handling parameterized properties, optional/named parameters, and for LINQ-enabling Office collection objects. Open XML Package Editor A graphical treeview-based editor for examining and editing Open XML Package files (including Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents). Ribbon IDs ToolWindow A custom tool window that displays all re-usable built-in Office Ribbon IDs. SharePoint Feature Sweeper A GUI tool that cleans up unwanted SharePoint features from the target server. SharePoint Workflow Package Generator A build tool to package a SharePoint workflow project so that the developer can hand the workflow to the admin for deployment. VSTO/VSTA Pipeline Verifier A GUI tool that reflects over custom pipeline assemblies to validate the complete VSTA pipeline. VSTO Developer Cleaner A GUI tool that cleans up the developer's machine from leftover build artifacts in the registry and certificate store. VSTO Troubleshooter A diagnostic tool that examines a machine for the necessary pre-requisites for running VSTO solutions.
Office Custom UI Manager
A set of classes for coordinating multiple instances of Ribbon, custom task pane and custom form region.
Office Interop API Extensions
A set of C# classes for handling parameterized properties, optional/named parameters, and for LINQ-enabling Office collection objects.
Open XML Package Editor
A graphical treeview-based editor for examining and editing Open XML Package files (including Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents).
Ribbon IDs ToolWindow
A custom tool window that displays all re-usable built-in Office Ribbon IDs.
SharePoint Feature Sweeper
A GUI tool that cleans up unwanted SharePoint features from the target server.
SharePoint Workflow Package Generator
A build tool to package a SharePoint workflow project so that the developer can hand the workflow to the admin for deployment.
VSTO/VSTA Pipeline Verifier
A GUI tool that reflects over custom pipeline assemblies to validate the complete VSTA pipeline.
VSTO Developer Cleaner
A GUI tool that cleans up the developer's machine from leftover build artifacts in the registry and certificate store.
VSTO Troubleshooter
A diagnostic tool that examines a machine for the necessary pre-requisites for running VSTO solutions.
Like all power tools, they're released independently of the usual Visual Studio release cycle, but stand a good chance of being included in the next version (fingers crossed).
My personal favourite here has got to be the Open XML Package Editor (formerly known as 'Grail'). This allows you to edit an Open XML file (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx) directly within Visual Studio. You can add parts and relationships, and it detects if the file has been modified externally.
It also presents a treeview of the Open XML package.
Sweet!