Visual Studio Tools for Applications : VSTA

VSTA DTEProvider has the ability to launch Visual Studio

VSTABlog — Mon, 18 May 2009 02:24:05 GMT

In VSTA 2.0, you can use DTEProvider to launch Visual Studio instead of VSTA, which can be helpful for debugging or provide additional functionalities for users who already have Visual Studio installed. For example, in ShapeAppCSharpMacroRecording sample, in EnsureIDE function of VstaDesignTimeIntegration.cs you can change the code of

IDTEProvider dteProvider = 
             (IDTEProvider)new VSTADTEProviderClass();
this.dte = (EnvDTE.DTE)dteProvider.GetDTE
                                   ("ShapeAppCSharp", 0);

IDTEProvider2 dteProvider2 = 
             (IDTEProvider2)new VSTADTEProviderClass();
this.dte = (EnvDTE.DTE)dteProvider2.GetVSDTE
                                   ("ShapeAppCSharp", 0);

Now Run ShapeApp, launch IDE and Visual Studio will be launched.

Using WPF in VSTA 2.0

VSTABlog — Sun, 10 May 2009 21:02:00 GMT

In VSTA 2.0, you have the ability to use WPF. In this post, we will show a simple example to add video to a VSTA add-in using WPF. We will start with ShapeAppCSharpBasic Example. Launch VSTA using "vsta.exe /hostid ShapeAppCSharp", Create a new C# project choosing ShapeAppCSharp-AppLevel template, accept the default name:

Go to Project Menu, choose "Add Windows Form ..." to add a WinForm. Choose "Add User Control " to add a WPF user control:

Open Toolbox, in Controls group, drag MediaElement control onto the WPF user control. Resize and position the MediaElement properly. If you do not have a sample video file, you can download one of the Visual Studio "How Do I?" videos. Rename the video to sample.wmf and put it under "c:\temp". MediaElement requires at least Window Media Player 11. If needed, download and install Window Media Player 11.

Now in XAML view, add source attribute to the MediaElement like:

<MediaElement Margin="12,22,23,27" Name="mediaElement1"

              Source="c:\temp\sample.wmv"/>

Note for simplicity, the video file path is hardcoded and we simply play the video when the WPF user control is loaded and will not go into the rich functionality of MediaElement.

Build the project. If you get compilation error like "The type or namespace name 'Linq' does not exist in the namespace 'System' (are you missing an assembly reference?)", remove the corresponding "using System.Linq;" accordingly.

Go to the WinForm control we added, open Toolbox, in WPF interoperability group, drag ElementHost onto the WinForm, and in ElementHost Tasks pop-up window, choose the WPF user control we created: UserControl1, as the Hosted Content:

In AppAddIn.cs, add the following code to AppAddIn_Startup:

private void AppAddIn_Startup(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    Form1 f = new Form1();
    f.ShowDialog();
}

Build again and run the project. Voila! You now have a video introduction for ShapeApp!

Enzhou Wang
Software Development Engineer

Learn about VSTA customer success stories and innovations in VSTA 2.0, tune into our webcast on Sep 27, 2007 at 9 AM PST

VSTABlog — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 23:37:00 GMT

Come join us for a webcast on September 27, 2007 at 9:00 AM PST to learn about customer success stories who are using VSTA and the innovations we have made in VSTA 2.0.

Naveen Yajaman, Program Manager on the VSTA team will be presenting.

For more event details and registration: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032351235&Culture=en-US

In this session we will discuss customer success stories using VSTA v1.0. We will also have demos of the new features in VSTA v2.0 and some discussion around that. It will be a good forum to ask questions.

VSTA Video: VSTA Overview

pstubbs — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 19:26:38 GMT

By now you have seen Visual Studio Tools for Applications in Office InfoPath 2007 and have been wondering about how to integrate VSTA into your applications. Watch Eric and Naveen take you through the features and design goals of VSTA.

Watch Now

VSTA RTM's with the 2007 Office System

VSTABlog — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 18:07:00 GMT

I am excited to announce that Visual Studio Tools for Applications (VSTA) was released as an integrated component of the 2007 Office system earlier this week and is available to both Office developers and ISVs!

As Microsoft's future direction in application extensibility, VSTA provides a powerful customization toolset for ISVs, their customers, and their partners. Leveraging Visual Studio and .NET to provide managed extensibility, VSTA enables innovative customization scenarios while offering new levels of security and control. VSTA accelerates and simplifies the development of tailored solutions, helping ISVs grow their partner ecosystems and extend their market reach. By integrating VSTA into their applications, ISVs give their customers a managed environment for tailoring applications to specific business needs. Within VSTA, multiple configuration options offer ISVs deep control over the customization experience, and new technologies make it possible to develop more reliable, version-resilient extensions. You can think of it as the modern, scalable, and more secure version of VBA.

This first release of VSTA makes numerous improvements over the VBA experience and includes many of the beloved VBA favorites. Perhaps the feature most applauded by enterprise BDMs and SI’s is that VSTA customizations are seamlessly opened by any version of Visual Studio enabling professional developers to continue to enhance applications originally created by end user developers – a feature requested by many enterprises because applications often grow in sophistication over time.

A brief rundown of this feature packed release of VSTA includes:

Leverages the innovative Visual Studio (VS) toolset

Multi-language support – VB and C#

Macro Recoding

Windows Forms designer

IntelliSense & Code Tasks

End-user debugging features: breakpoints, watch/auto/locals windows

Supports connected systems development

Web services-based development

Fully leverages the .NET Framework

Running and debugging 32-bit and 64-bit add-ins

Running partial trusted add-ins

Client and Server programming

Common VSTA/VSTO runtime architecture for seamless up-leveling of solutions

Graduated host integration capabilities – “use what you need when you need it”

Low barrier to entry – get started in about two days

Add more functionality as desired/needed over time

Runs side x side with VBA

Add-in Management

Simplifies loading and unloading of add-ins

Ability to manage application domain creation

Host defined discovery and qualification supporting repository based scenarios

VSTA SDK includes

Redistributable VS based IDE and Runtime

Integration tools

Samples and walk throughs

Help documentation

Find out more about VSTA here, including how to download the VSTA SDK and learn about the simplified and transparent ISV pricing model.

Happy Customization!

KD Hallman

General Manager

Microsoft - Developer Division