As you probably know, the pre-requisites for running a VSTO app (even of the simplest Hello World variety) include:

• .NET Framework 3.5
• Primary Interop Assemblies (PIAs)
• VSTO Runtime
• (Plus Office of course)

Now, packaging these isnâ€t the issue, since the Visual Studio team have worked hard to make the ClickOnce process a simple and seamless experience. The issue is the size of the download, plus requiring Admin privileges on the box you are installing on. For developers like you and me this doesnâ€t sound like much of a problem, but for an IT Manager in charge of rolling a simple VSTO app out across an enterprise this can be a significant headache (although Group policy can solve some of this).

And it doesnâ€t stop there, because if you have a number of VSTO add-ins going out, each of them needs to be installed separately. Finally thereâ€s limitations with how to control post-install events (Eg copying Word or Excel templates into the proper locations).

The VSTO team have been focusing on deployment and security issues over the last 2 releases, and in the VS2008 release they made significant improvements. The recent SP1 for .NET 3.5 further eased the process.

But, itâ€s a process that still needs improvement.

Visual Studio 2010

So, itâ€s good to see that the team are making excellent progress in VS2010. As the recent PDC presentation from Saurabh Bhatia demonstrated (PowerPoint file here), thereâ€s already key functionality increases.

The main points covered are:

• Multi-project deployment (eg install an Outlook add-in, Excel add-in and Word add-in all at once)
• Post deployment custom actions (eg moving files to user directories, deleting files during uninstall)
• No-PIA installs (no need to include the PIAs – achieved via Type Embedding – a feature in CLR 4.0

This is welcome news to VSTO developers (actually probably more so for IT Managers). The pre-requisites are now down to the .NET Framework and the VSTO Runtime, and complex VSTO applications can be installed with a single install and enabled to configure itself.

Itâ€d be so much simpler if the VSTO Runtime was automatically installed with Office or the Framework, but as we know, Microsoft are trying to reduce install sizes these days not add to them. Deployment will always have its pain points – good to see the team are getting close to an acceptable compromise.

This is an interesting use case because you essentially have a group of very experienced, highly productive developers, all extremely familiar with their technology. So my aim was to look at how Microsoft is supporting this community (as opposed to say pushing them into a new technology). I chatted about this previously.

The key is VBA / VSTO Interop, which allows VBA code to easily call VSTO code and vice versa.

The benefit of this approach is that VBA developers can (and should) continue to use their existing skill-set primarily, and easily take advantage of the .NET VSTO stuff in bite sized chunks when appropriate. Thereâ€s no either/or scenario here, it is very much one of complementing each other.

My presentation is available on my SkyDrive here, and Iâ€ve recorded an 11 minute demo of how VBA and VSTO can call each other (its an Excel example, and is very much based on Daniel Mothâ€s excellent demo, which I referred to back in July). It also demos how bad my typing is :-)

VBA and VSTO Interop from Craig Bailey on Vimeo.

I recorded this with Camtasia and left in many of the zoom-n-pan effects. Tell me if itâ€s too much.

Thereâ€s a growing list of VSTO related questions there, so along with the MSDN VSTO forums you are pretty likely to have any VSTO related question answered. stackoverflow doesnâ€t have any RSS feeds of their tags at this stage, but I hear it is high on the wishlist.

Thereâ€s also an RSS feed of the stackoverflow VSTO questions (although it is easy to miss, being right down the bottom of the page).

The Office Development with Visual Studio Developer Center, as well as being short and pithy to say (not! :-) is a very intuitive entry into many of the VSTO related areas, whether they be How Do I videos, Code samples, CodePlex, Forums, Community links, as well as links to OBA.

Last week at Office DevCon I mentioned some of the excellent VSTO resources around. This Developer Center site would be my pick of them.

I especially like the Featured Resources section at the top, with pointers to things like the PDC sessions on whatâ€s coming in Visual Studio 2010 in relation to VSTO.

Check it out.

Iâ€m moving on

Angus is much more Agile focussed than me, and recently lead a very useful retrospective for us at Elcom. In a recent discussion weâ€ve been looking at the issue of quality, and in particular how we can improve it. Interestingly, this topic has come up in a number of talks Iâ€ve had with various parties recently. Quality, as a topic, seems to be making a resurgence (eg Microsoft and Apple have both indicated strategies of better quality in preference to bulging feature sets – consider Windows 7 for example.)

The book

During the chat Angus recommended Pete McBreenâ€s classic book – Software Craftsmanship. Its been around for a while now and is reasonably well known.

After reading it, I have to say that this book has come close to rocking my world.

This has totally changed my outlook on software development. If you havenâ€t read it then you probably should. If I were to summarise it Iâ€d say this:

Letâ€s make a stand against ‘good enough†software. Letâ€s build quality. Letâ€s consider software development as a craft.

Easier said than done right? For too many years Iâ€ve been a realist – you know, mature (and smug) enough to realise software always has bugs and we have budgets to meet (as the saying goes: money, time, quality – pick 2). Those pesky idealists with their goals of striving for perfection obviously havenâ€t spent enough time in the real world…

But, Iâ€m changing my tune now.

Just how do we build quality? According to McBreen its about embracing the concept of software craftsmanship*. Itâ€s about seeing software development as a craft, and not as a production line. In a nutshell: itâ€s about understanding that developers need to think. As McBreen notes:

“Students learn about the requirements, without ever taking the time to think about where the requirements come from or learning the facilitation skills necessary to elicit them from the user communities.” (p32)

Now, the purpose of this post isnâ€t to cover McBreenâ€s argument (you can read the book for that), but there is one point (of the many he makes) I want to highlight.

A key contributor to mastering your craft is in knowing your technology and toolset extremely well. Itâ€s much harder, for example, to build a high quality application if youâ€re spending most of your time trying to understand the latest new fangled technique. Thatâ€s not to say that new technology and craftsmanship are necessarily mutually exclusive, but they can often compete. After all, if you donâ€t know your technology well, you can fall into the trap of letting what little you do know about the technology dictate how the requirements are implemented (with the obvious limitations and quality issues that will follow).

Hereâ€s why its giving me pause for thought:

VBA developers

This weekend Iâ€m presenting at Office DevCon on the topic of ‘VSTO for VBA Developersâ€.

It struck me as Iâ€ve been preparing, that many VBA developers are indeed software craftsmen (or craftswomen). Theyâ€ve been working intimately with their technology for years (decades even) and theyâ€ve seen countless real world VBA implementations. Quite simply, they have a wealth of VBA experience, skills and applied understanding that has seen many of them master their craft.

So, with that capability, why would they want to move onto something completely different… like VSTO?

Or, consider FoxPro. Having come from the FoxPro community, Iâ€ve experienced first hand how many of the VFP developers are master craftsmen in the truest sense. How can you compete with more than 20 years of in-depth experience with essentially the same tool, coupled (for many practitioners) with working in the same industry (eg finance or medical or manufacturing)?

Sure, the newer tools allow you to do more and different things, but they donâ€t magically turn you into a craftsman.

Back to our VBA developers. What can I possibly say that will make them comfortable with the thought of VSTO? Well, as it turns out thereâ€s plenty to offer (the magic of interop is a key one, and Iâ€ll be covering my presentation in a later post) but thatâ€s not the point.

The point is, they should be very wary of any new technology – if it is going to adversely affect quality. They would be right to question the need to change.

Time to stand up

Donâ€t get me wrong, this isnâ€t a post about getting stuck in the past. After all, software development by its very nature is a constantly changing field, and we should all be working hard to stay current. No, this is a post about prioritizing.

We must constantly remind ourselves, that regardless of the amazingness of the latest tools, we need to ensure our focus is first and foremost on mastering our craft. We must renew our commitment to quality. We must resume educating our clients about the longer term cost savings of quality software. We must not let our industry fall further into the mire of ‘good enough†software.

McBreenâ€s book was relevant when he wrote it way back in 2002 (yes, 6 years is an eternity in IT). Today, more than ever, it is a necessity.

[* Note: craftsmanship is gender neutral – just in case some well meaning soul thinks we should be referring to it as craftspersonship!]

Office DevCon is an annual community-driven conference that allows Microsoft Office developers and power users to come together in one location to hear expert speakers present on a wide range of Microsoft Office-related topics.

Come along and discover how to do things you never knew you could do with the Microsoft Office suite of products.

What’s covered?

We have Microsoft and industry experts from around the world who will present advanced topics the following products.

• Access
• Word
• Excel
• PowerPoint
• InfoPath
• Groove
• SharePoint.

Presenting

Iâ€m happy to say that Iâ€ll be presenting at the conference. My session is on VSTO for VBA developers.

You should come

I was at last yearâ€s Office DevCon and loved it. I heartily recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about Office, SharePoint and Groove, both from a user and/or a developer perspective.

Register here. Itâ€s free to attend!

Sponsors

Oh, and a big thank you to our sponsors. Without them the conference wouldnâ€t be happening.

So I wanted to list them and their logos here. Perhaps you could do me a favour and click on their links and spend a second or two checking out their sites (especially the first 3):

Combined Knowledge
Pacific Database
Stargate
SharePoint
MVP Program
Microsoft

General VSTO resources

	MSDN VSTO Developer Portal Start here. This is the best place to start in terms of getting up to speed with what is happening in the VSTO world. See also the MSDN Intro to VSTO.
	MSDN Forums This is where I learn most of the tips for coding with VSTO, simply by reading through what problems people are having and how they are being solved by experts like Cindy Meister and Sue Mosher. Cindy also has an excellent VSTO 2008 Resource List on the forum.
	How Do I videos I love this site. Steve Hansen and Ty Anderson do most of these excellent videos. Most videos are between 10 and 15 minutes long which makes them ideal for watching when you need a quick break. Highly recommended.
	VSTO Blog The  Microsoft VSTO blog. Contributed to by a number of authors including Christin Boyd, Harry Miller, Mary Lee and Beth Massi, this is a useful (and sometimes entertaining!) resource. Make sure you watch Harryâ€s videos.
	VSTO Code Gallery Download code for a range of VSTO add-ins. Most come with documentation and each has a discussion thread for asking questions. This is where youâ€ll find the code samples for the VSTO MSI Installer walk-through.
	Visual Studio Tools for Office videos A collection of simple videos demonstrating key VSTO techniques. Make sure you also check out the MSDN section on VSTO architecture.
	VSTO on Office Zealot Office Zealot is a great resource for all things office, including VSTO.
	Outlook Code Since my focus is predominantly on Outlook 2007 add-ins this is a favourite site of mine. And make sure you check out the Forums – very helpful. This page alone is worth viewing, as it gives a comprehensive overview of VSTO and links to a number of references. The site is managed by the amazing Sue Mosher.

VSTO related Blogs

	VSTO blog As mentioned above the official Microsoft VSTO blog is well worth reading.
	Andrew Whitechapel An excellent resource that dives into the nitty-gritty of VSTO.
	Eric Carter Eric is a long time VSTO expert (and author).
	John Durant John blogs about VSTO, SharePoint and a whole bunch of Office related stuff. Aside: John is one of the most energetic presenters Iâ€ve ever seen!
	Nikhil Khandelwal Nikhil covers a range of topics including VSTO and SharePoint workflow.
	Misha Shneerson A fantastic blog, especially covering setup and deployment.
	Kristopher Makey An excellent resource for deployment details. Kris was recently featured in this Channel 9 video with Beth Massi.
	Kathleen McGrath Primarily a VB blog, but includes VSTO content as well. Kathleen wrote one of the first books I read on VSTO.
	Steve Fox More focused on OBA in general than VSTO specifically, but definitely one to keep on your regular blog reading list.
	Andrew Coates A Sydney based Developer Evangelist, Andrew often blogs about VSTO. I was fortunate enough to co-present with Andrew recently at TechEd on VSTO deployment. The demo videos are here and here. Andrew has a useful collection of deployment related resources here.

Other VSTO blogs (that havenâ€t been updated lately regarding VSTO but are worth keeping an eye on) include: Chris Castillo, Ken Getz,  Mike Hernandez, Tim Huckaby, Maurice, Maarten van Stam.

Have I missed something obvious? Please leave me a comment and Iâ€ll add it to the list.

I get a few emails each week from people asking about various VSTO related scenarios. I can usually point them to a related MSDN forum entry or blog post, or even (on a good day!) solve it for them myself.

Interestingly the question of Access add-ins has come up a few times lately, so I thought Iâ€d make mention of it here.

Basically, the official position is that building Access Add-ins is NOT supported. Thereâ€s no template in Visual Studio for building any type of VSTO add-in for Access.

However, thatâ€s not to say something canâ€t be done. Andrew Whitechapel wrote an excellent post back in February that covers the possibilities. Suffice to say, it is possible (in the sense that just about anything is possible) but – I repeat – is expressly NOT supported by Microsoft (his post explains why).

(Note: I havenâ€t tried this – Iâ€m simply linking to it)

(Aside: If you are looking for the Access 2007 Developer Extensions (ADE) click here)

Actually, more correctly, we are going to deploy via ClickOnce but deliver via SharePoint.

This the second demo on VSTO deployment, and follows on from my previous post about VSTO deployment via ClickOnce.

It covers building a very simple Word document level add-in, deploying to a network share, uploading this to SharePoint, and then focusing on the experience a user would have viewing it via a SharePoint Team Site.

TechEd 2008 – Session DEV320: Deploying VSTO v3 Applications

This is the second of the demos Andrew Coates and I will be giving in our TechEd session (next Wed 3 Sep at 4pm for those interested) – see my previous post for details.

Screencast

You can view it a few ways.

• You can view the Vimeo hosted version (or see below), but be aware this is lower res.
• If you want the original 1024 x 768 resolution then click here to view it (Recommended!).
• You can also download the WMV file (24.4 MB).

Acknowledgements: As previously noted, Andrew came up with most of the examples, so if you find the demo helpful then chances are heâ€s the reason! And if thereâ€s excessive woffle or mistakes, then thatâ€d be my input :-)

Any comments?

I hope this helps.

Iâ€m always keen to improve my demos and presentations. If you have any advice or feedback Iâ€d love to hear it.

If you are new to VSTO deployment then this simple little screencast (just under 14 mins) may help. It covers the scenario of deploying an application level add-in via ClickOnce to a network share, and then the experience a user would have installing it.

TechEd 2008 – Session DEV320: Deploying VSTO v3 Applications

This is one of the demos Andrew Coates and I will be giving in our TechEd session (next Wed 3 Sep at 4pm for those interested).

In our session we cover all the security and trust issues around VSTO deployment (you can download an earlier version of the PowerPoint from Andrewâ€s blog here). We cover ClickOnce, MSI and SharePoint scenarios. However, we only have time to demo the ClickOnce and SharePoint scenarios. Iâ€m planning on doing a screencast of the MSI process at a later stage (leave a comment if this is of interest to you).

Andrew and I had a practice run through last week, and I recorded the demo parts. The first demo is available now (below).

Screencast

You can view it a few ways.

• You can view the Vimeo hosted version (or see below), but be aware this is lower res.
• If you want the original 1024 x 768 resolution then click here to view it (Recommended!).
• You can also download the WMV file (16.1 MB).

Acknowledgements: Andrew came up with most of the examples, so if you find the demo helpful then chances are heâ€s the reason! And if thereâ€s excessive woffle or mistakes, then thatâ€d be my input :-)

Any comments?

I hope this helps.

Iâ€m always keen to improve my demos and presentations. If you have any advice or feedback Iâ€d love to hear it. In fact I might try to organise a little prize for the best bit of feedback… please leave comment against this post.

(UPDATE: Hereâ€s the Deployment via SharePoint screencast)

Maarten van Stam has a nice tip for isolating specific changes made in SP1. Check out his post here, or just run this search and youâ€ll see the list of 902 pages worth of doco changes.

You can then narrow that further by selecting one of the one of the Refinement options:

Refining by Visual Studio Tools for Office and Visual Studio 2008 for example gives us 306 results:

Speaking of VSTO related stuff specifically, Christin Boyd has a rundown of the VSTO SP1 enhancements here.

Before installation

If youâ€ve installed any hot fixes over the last few months you should clean them up first

Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack Preparation Tool (14 MB)

(note: this replaces the original Hotfix Cleanup utility for removing KB944899)

Service Pack 1

Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 main installer

Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 .iso file (831 MB)

.NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (note: this is included in the Visual Studio SP1 so you only need to download this for patching servers and non-Dev client machines).

After installing – VSTO problems

Something to note – a few things might go funny if you have any VSTO add-ins.

Iâ€ve got a number of Outlook add-ins that Iâ€ve been working on and when I started Outlook (after installing SP1) it would hang. Starting in Safe mode and then setting the Add-ins Inactive, allowed me to narrow it down to the offending modules. Some were fine, others caused problems.

(To get to this dialog in Outlook go –> Tools –> Trust Center –> Add-ins. Click on the Go… button at the bottom to set modules inactive)

Fixing the issue – just Rebuild

All that was required was a simple rebuild of the solutions and they are working fine again in Outlook.

But by the time it had finished heâ€d won me over. The reason I really like it is because 1. Itâ€s short – less than 2 minutes, and 2. It makes a really useful point (how to avoid automatic upgrade of Office 2003 VSTO solutions to your version (ie 2007) of office.

And thereâ€s another reason:  itâ€s a reminder of the power of video: not only does it convey concepts well, but you remember stuff. So, whilst I love reading Sara Fordâ€s tips, I have to admit that a day or so later Iâ€ve forgotten most of them (aside: thatâ€s reason alone why her new book is on my must-buy list). But with Harryâ€s tip, I reckon thereâ€s a good chance Iâ€ll have remembered this one in a week or so. (Btw watch this latest video of his and then check out the ‘related†videos that Soapbox recommends – thereâ€s an algorithm needs tweaking…)

For those of you who wonâ€t be watching the 1 min 49 sec video, it basically shows why you need to know about this setting:

Now, whereâ€s my VSTO glasses…

(via Beth Massi)

After chatting with a few people about Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) recently, itâ€s clear that the technology is not that well understood (even though, in my opinion, Microsoft have done a pretty good job of articulating it – much better than say OBA for example). So in this post Iâ€m aiming to give a high level overview of VSTO and clear up some misconceptions.

As usual this is covered under my ‘well duh†disclaimer, and I apologise in advance for ‘reworking†some of my content from earlier in the year, including this one from January and my general VSTO page. For a comparison of VSTO to VSTA see this page.

VSTO – What?

VSTO is Microsoft’s tool set for building applications that run on Microsoft Office (eg Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint).

I deliberately choose the word ‘on†because part of understanding VSTO is to view Office as a platform.

VSTO – A brief history…

Originally a replacement for VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) that was delivered in Excel and Word, VSTO was made available in its first version approximately around the start of 2004, targeting the Office 2003 platform. Development was performed in Visual Studio 2003 but was referred to as VSTO 2003 (or sometimes VSTO 1.0). It was an add-on to VS.NET 2003 and wasn’t free (costing around $450).

The second version, referred to as V2 or VSTO 2005 was a big update that added numerous advances and enhancements (eg support for Outlook). It was delivered as a special SKU of VS 2005 (my understanding is it was not available as a separate download, but I could be wrong).

The third version, confusingly titled VSTO 2005 Second Edition (VSTO 2005 SE) was delivered in 2007 and focused on targeting the Office 2007 platform. It was a freely downloadable add-on for VS 2005.

This SE version was tweaked significantly and released in November 2007 as part of Visual Studio 2008 (Professional and above – it is not available in the Standard edition), and is referred to as VSTO V3 (even though it is the fourth version of the product). VSTO 2008 overcomes many of the deployment and security hurdles found in previous versions, and adds a number of design helpers (eg visual editing of Office 2007 toolbars, support for SharePoint 3.0 Workflow, etc). SP1 for VSTO V3 is to be released shortly and further improves deployment abilities (as well as bug fixes, enhancement, etc).

The aim of VSTO is to provide tools for developers to build on top of Office as a platform. Using VB.NET and/or C#, developers can use Visual Studio to build add-ins for most of the Office 2003 and 2007 applications, including Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, InfoPath and Visio. SharePoint and Groove development is also possible, although not directly targeted.

VSTO – How?

So, how to get working with VSTO?

In a nutshell VSTO is a set of Visual Studio project templates that allow you to write add-ins for Microsoft Office applications (eg an add-in for Outlook, or Word, etc).

(Donâ€t worry) Iâ€m not going into any code in this post, but I think screen shot from File –> New –> Project… in Visual Studio 2008 helps explain the scope:

As a developer you can build add-ins for most of the Office programs. Start by choosing a particular template (eg an Outlook 2007 Add-in) and Visual Studio will setup the skeleton and initial hooks.

Application level versus Document level

VSTO supports four types of add-in. The two main ones are:

• Application level add-ins – are those that reside in the program itself. Example: you add a toolbar in Word that has functionality that can run regardless of which document you have open. Application level add-ins can be written for just about all Office apps including Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Project and Visio (all in both 2003 and 2007 versions) and InfoPath 2007.
• Document level add-ins (or customisations) – are delivered within a specific document. Example: you include functions in a specific Excel workbook. The functions are only available when you open that workbook. Document level add-ins are only relevant to Word and Excel. (You could think of Document level customisations as the VSTO equivalent of VBA macros in Word and Excel).

VSTO also support two lesser known types:

• SharePoint 2007 Workflow templates
• InfoPath 2007 Form Templates

VSTO – Some misconceptions

Thereâ€s a few common misconceptions Iâ€ve come across talking with people about VSTO. Hereâ€s the clarifications:

• Yes, VSTO V3 requires Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 – I mention this because it is a common question on the forums. So, if you donâ€t have Visual Studio 2008, or canâ€t be certain your users will have .NET 3.5 then youâ€ll need to work with a previous version. 
• Yes, you can target both Office 2003 and Office 2007 apps using VSTO V3, but no, you canâ€t target them both in the same add-in (eg you canâ€t write a single add-in that will work in both Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007).
• Yes, VSTO and VBA are friends. Whilst VSTO may have started out as a replacement for VBA, it soon became apparent that Interop with VBA is much better for all concerned. VBA is going to be around for a while, and with interop the huge body of VBA code can be used in VSTO apps (see this post for more VBA and VSTO details).
• Yes, VSTO is a part of OBA – you may run into the term Office Business Applications (OBA) and think  OBA and VSTO are synonymous. But thatâ€d be missing the huge scope of OBA. OBA covers a whole enterprise architecture with LOB apps and Servers as well as Office. VSTO is just part of the tooling for building OBAs (see here for a full overview of OBA).

VSTO – Why?

Question: Why exactly would you want to consider VSTO?

Answer: so you can build on a platform.

And not just any platform. But a platform that is now in its twelfth version, covers almost every imaginable business and home user scenario, and is installed on more 500M PCs worldwide… The Office platform.

Now, to be fair, not all of those users are using Visual Studio 2003 or 2007, but the majority certainly are, and growing. (For example, in a recent OBA webcast I watched, around the 3:09 mark there were figures from Forester Research – dated 31 Mar 2008 – detailing that 62% of surveyed enterprises not yet on Office 2007 were moving to Office 2007 in the next 12 months.)

So then the question becomes – why build on a platform? I think Andrew Coates answered this beautifully in his Standing on the Shoulders of Giants post a year ago. If you havenâ€t already, read it. [Aside: Initially, youâ€ll wonder why he goes into such detailed history… but later, perhaps pondering it while stuck in line at the local supermarket, or caught in a boring meeting, itâ€ll suddenly fall into place, and youâ€ll understand the necessity of working with a platform.]

With VSTO, you get to build on top of the Office platform, using the vast functionality of the .NET framework.

VSTO – Hurdles

VSTO isnâ€t without its problems. For one, youâ€ve got a whole lot of extra weight you need to ship with your app (including a bunch of extra DLLs called Primary Interop Assemblies – Iâ€ll be explaining those things in a later post – plus the VSTO runtime, and of course the .NET Framework). But that isnâ€t the main thing…

Deployment has been the biggest hurdle to VSTO adoption. Getting your add-in out there and easy to install isnâ€t the simple task it should be. V3 has certainly improved the process, but thereâ€s still work to be done. And as mentioned in an earlier post, a big focus of the upcoming VS2008 SP1 enhancements has been to make VSTO deployment even easier. Andrew Coates links to a number of good resources on VSTO deployment.

VSTO – Where are the examples?

One of the frustrations Iâ€ve found with VSTO is finding some good real-world examples. Sure, thereâ€s plenty of code samples, and the odd Code Gallery post, but thereâ€s nothing detailing commercial applications that I can find (Iâ€m hoping someone corrects me on this). Thereâ€s nothing on the Microsoft case studies site (the closest I could find were some OBA case studies that mention VSTO), and thereâ€s nothing in any blogs that I can find pointing to cool VSTO apps available for download.

Thatâ€s not to say there arenâ€t plenty of add-ins for Outlook, Word, Excel, etc out there, itâ€s just that I canâ€t be certain if they were built using VSTO or not. For example, Xobni is a nice little Outlook add-in, but doesnâ€t appear to use VSTO. Hopefully I can add some examples to this section soon.

VSTO – Resources

Iâ€ll be linking to a full list of VSTO resources in a future post, but for now start here: VSTO Portal on MSDN. Then go here for a Getting Started with VSTO guide. For hands on detail, take a look at this helpful forum post by the awesome Cindy Meister and these How Do I Videos on the Office Dev Center. For blogs and articles head over to OfficeZealot and of course the official VSTO blog. Iâ€ve also listed some other resources on my VSTO page.

Also, if youâ€re interested I have a separate feed for my VSTO related posts:  VSTO

VSTO – Summary

• Visual Studio Tools for Office is a set of Visual Studio project templates and runtimes for building add-ins for Microsoft Office programs.
• VSTO is mature (now in its fourth version) and easy to use. It has overcome many of the deployment hurdles it had in the past, but still has a few to resolve.
• The latest version uses Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 and can create add-ins for just about any Office 2003 or Office 2007 app.

10 million VBA developers?

Theyâ€re important questions, after all there are reportedly 10 million VBA developers still active world wide (thatâ€s the staggering number I heard at the MVP Summit earlier this year – Iâ€ve tried to find some online citations for this but havenâ€t so far – please advise/correct me if you know better).

With so many VBA developers (and many of them passionate VBA coders) there needs to be some compelling reasons why theyâ€d want to switch to VSTO…

But hereâ€s the thing. They donâ€t have to switch. Whether Microsoft initially started with the aim of ‘converting†the VBA crowd to VSTO Iâ€m not sure. If so, they soon realised that having a bridge between VSTO and VBA was a far more beneficial offering. So theyâ€ve worked hard (and successfully) to provide extremely simple VBA/VSTO interop.

This video by Daniel Moth is a good overview, as is this short demo by Eric Schnepp which walks through an Excel example calling VSTO code from VBA. (Both are from last year, recorded before Visual Studio 2008 was officially released, but still very relevant.)

As the videos show, it is dead simple (enabling it is literally a single option getting set true) to call VBA code from VSTO and VSTO code from VBA functions. VBA isnâ€t going anywhere soon – its around for the long haul.

If youâ€re a VBA developer then you donâ€t need to throw out your VBA, you can still use it all and simply add new stuff in VSTO as you get up to speed. The advantages of VSTO are immense (huge library of functions to use, application level code as well as document level, new designers, custom task panes, full access to the framework, working with XML, security, error handling, etc) but it isnâ€t without its downside: youâ€ll need to ensure the client has all the pre-requisites installed (.NET framework, PIAs, VSTO runtime).

If youâ€re after a fuller article on VSTO and VBA then this ‘ancient†one from Paul Stubbs and Kathleen McGrath is highly recommended. Incidentally, their book VSTO for Mere Mortals was the first book I read on VSTO, and was an excellent introduction (note: itâ€s based on a previous version of VSTO).

Also, in case you werenâ€t aware of the .NET Framework Client profile, hereâ€s a quick rundown of what is included (thanks to Justin Van Patten). As the name suggests, the Client Profile (coming in around 27MB) is a subset of the .NET Framework and includes only those items required for client applications (eg WinForm apps, WPF, VSTO). (Note, you still need to deploy the PIAs and other pre-reqs separately for VSTO).

When: This Wed 30 July 2008

• Time: 6pm (until approx 8:30pm)
• Where: Microsoft, North Ryde
• Contact: Craig Bailey : 0413 489 388
• Cost: Free (Pizza all provided)
• More details: www.sbtug.com

Hereâ€s the list of Demo presenters so far:

• Catherine Eibner
• Justin King
• Jodie Miners
• Tatham Oddie
• James McCutcheon

all presenting their favourite 2008 Stack feature – itâ€s sure to be an informative night.

Please come along and support them – I know a few have been burning the midnight oil putting their demos together.

Details of OBA and VSTO presentation

After the demos and pizza Iâ€m going to be taking a high level look at Office Business Applications (OBA) and Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO).

Thanks to people who responded to my email asking for suggestions – I appreciate your feedback and have incorporated much of it into the presentation.

Hereâ€s what Iâ€ll be covering:

• What are Office Business Applications? (see also my earlier blog post)
• Understanding Line Of Business apps
• The technology underlying OBAs
• Some examples and case studies
• Introduction to VSTO
• Comparison of VSTO and VBA
• Overview of VSTO deployment
• VSTO examples
• Open session for members to share their own experiences (a number of you have experience with VSTO and are willing to share)

Facebook

Donâ€t forget, if you haven’t already, you can join the SBTUG group on Facebook.

And please RSVP for Wed nightâ€s event here to let us know you are coming.

Help promote SBTUG

I need your help – please spread the word about SBTUG – thereâ€s a $5 Starbucks voucher in it if you do :-). Perhaps a link on your website… every bit helps.

Twitter

Last but not least, you can always follow us on Twitter here.

Back in May Christen Boyd gave us a sneak peak at the VSTO SP1 goodies, specifically the new Word and Excel extended object possibilities, and the ability to use Event viewer messages during deployment.

In her latest post from 2 weeks back, Christen not only gives a much fuller run down of the VSTO SP1 change set, but she explains how the team arrive at their decisions as to what makes it in. Remember, Service Packs are usually about fixing bugs, and just on the VSTO side of things thereâ€s over a thousand bug fixes (143 are high severity). Amazing work folks.

But thatâ€s just the start. Then thereâ€s the enhancements they pack in as well. Youâ€ll see that deployment is a key focus with VSTO. Itâ€s traditionally been a problem with the product, and even though VSTO V3 resolved most of the big ones, deployment is still the biggest hurdle to wide-spread adoption (take a stroll through the VSTO forums if you need convincing). A later post from the team shows how keen they are to overcome these issues.

Back to the enhancements in SP1 and youâ€ll see that it includes two very welcome additions – the ability to include the PIAs in your installer, plus the option of targeting the Client Profile (the reduced .NET framework installation). Bring it on.

Note that Andrew Coates will be delivering an entire session on VSTO deployment at this yearâ€s TechEd in Sydney. Make sure you check out his PowerPoint presentation on this post.

Being interested in more of the VSTO and Office development side of things it was nice to see how that area is coming along.

(via Maarten Van Stam)

VSTS (Visual Studio Team System)

Firstly, Visual Studio. Visual Studio 2008 (the current version) is Microsoft's IDE for building .NET based applications, be they Web, Desktop, Device or Microsoft Office based.

Visual Studio comes in a number of different versions, grouped into three main areas:

• Express editions (freely downloadable, limited feature set)
• Visual Studio (Standard and Professional versions)
• Visual Studio Team System (developer-role based versions that integrate with Team Foundation Server)

The premier version is called Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Suite and includes everything from all the different-role based versions.

VSTO (Visual Studio Tools for Office)

VSTO is Microsoft's tool set for building applications that run in Microsoft Office (eg Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint). They are built using Visual Studio.

Originally a replacement for VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) in Excel and Word, VSTO was made available in its first version approximately around the start of 2004. The most recent version – VSTO V3 – was delivered as part of Visual Studio 2008 in November 2007.

The aim of VSTO is to provide tools for developers to build on top of Office as a platform. Using VB.NET and/or C#, developers can use Visual Studio to build add-in for most of the Office 2003 and 2007 applications, including Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, InfoPath and Visio. SharePoint and Groove development is also possible, al though not directly targeted.

(See also my further thoughts on VSTO here)

VSTA (Visual Studio Tools for Applications)

VSTA is a customisation toolkit for allowing your application to be extended (using .NET). You are basically exposing your application's object model in a form that can be built upon using Visual Studio. You can even embed a cut-down version of Visual Studio into your application to allow customers to extend it without having to install Visual Studio.

If they do have Visual Studio installed, they'll be able to built add-ins for your application.

VSTA comes from the same Microsoft product group as VSTO and shares a similar architecture. Here's how they relate to each other:

Microsoft has a product (eg Outlook) that they want you to be able to extend. They use VSTA to allow their product (Outlook) to be extended using Visual Studio. They call their extension toolset VSTO.

(Note: They don't embed the cut-down version of Visual Studio into Outlook, but the concept is similar to how they provide the macro editor embedded into Office.)

VSTA is reasonably new – the first version was announced in early 2006. The second version is due in early 2008.

VSX (Visual Studio Extensions/Extensibility)

It's easy to get confused between VSTA and VSX. The difference is that with VSTA you provide extensibility for your application, whilst with VSX you build new extensions for Visual Studio. With VSX you are building something new onto the Visual Studio IDE.

Code Magazine recently had an entire issue devoted to VSX.

VSX is part of the Visual Studio Ecosystem of products, delivered via the Visual Studio 2008 SDK.

Microsoft has been focussing on opening up extensibility for Visual Studio a lot lately. Although the ability to do so has been around for a while, it is now free (previously it was licensed at a cost), licensing restrictions have been toned down, and the Visual Studio Shell has been released (meaning you can build Visual Studio Add-ins without even needing Visual Studio installed).

Also, a number of open source projects have appeared on CodePlex, including the World of Warcraft AddOn Studio.

Other V words:

VSS (Visual SourceSafe)

Microsoft's long running source control product has been superseeded in many ways by the source control elements of Team Foundation Server, however VSS is still promoted and supported. Ideal for smaller development teams.

Volta (Volta)

A new initiative from Microsoft labs, as opposed to a product as such, this is a process of so called tier splitting, whereby the Volta technology takes a traditional WinForms application and splits it out into client and server tiers/components, all held together with Volta goodness. The server tiers can be transformed to being web based (JavaScript usage features heavily in this case).

Vista

I think we all know this one. Microsoft Vista is an operating system, and the successor to Windows XP. 

People love these kinds of rumours, especially when they talk about a software company turning their back on long standing clients. Always gets attention.

Thankfully this load of hokum about VBA being discontinued is not true. The VSTO blog clears it up.

To be clear: VBA will continue to be part of the next Office release on Windows.

I’ve been spending a fair bit of time with VSTO lately, and I’ve found Steve Hansen’s How To videos to be one of the best resources in getting me started.

What I particularly like is that he takes interesting ideas as his sample examples. For instance: how to put a WPF Action Pane in Excel, or how to Search SharePoint from Word. No ‘Hello World’ sleep inducers here.

The other thing I like is that most between 10 and 20 minutes in length. Watch one whilst you’re having breakfast. Or lunch. Too easy.

Short videos is the way forward.

Here’s a few links to Steve’s videos that I watched and found useful:

• How Do I: Use WPF Controls Inside an Excel Actions Pane?
• How Do I: Create Outlook Form Regions Using Visual Studio 2008?
• How Do I: Use the Ribbon Designer to Customize the Ribbon in Excel?
• How Do I: Use Task Panes in Outlook?
• How Do I: Deploy a VSTO Add-In?
• How Do I: Customize Outlook Item Context Menus?
• How Do I: Use MOSS Enterprise Search in a Client Application?
• How Do I: Create an Outlook Add-in?

There are plenty more on the VSTO How Do I videos page.

I’ve also been checking out Beth Massi’s excellent How Do I videos on VB and LINQ – but more on those another time.

Here’s my prediction:
2008 will be the year that Office Business Applications go mainstream*.

And by Office Business Applications (OBAs) I’m interested primarily in applications built using Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) technologies**. Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint are the main platforms targeted.

Outlook is the future  

My main focus will be on Outlook because it is the program (IMO) that is used by the most people, and for the most time during each day (ie ‘everyone’ has Outlook open all day). (Word and Excel are of course close behind).

Outlook has over 450 million users (admittedly most are not yet on Outlook 2007) and this will only increase in the coming year.

But why hasn’t this happened already?

Hurdles so far
Reason 1: Toolset

VSTO, even though it is in its third version is still hard to learn. There are still significant hurdles to cross, but it is getting much better. Many of the security and deployment concerns have been addressed, and the breadth of material and online help available is growing steadily.

Reason 2: Mindset

However, the main reason for the lack of mainstream* movement so far is because people are still caught up with matching VSTO applications to Office functional context.

Thus, they think (incorrectly in my Web 2.0 opinion) that an Outlook add-in should relate to an already existing Outlook task eg helping with email, or contact, a to do item etc.

Time to rethink I say.

We should start building all kinds of applications into Outlook, especially those that have nothing to do with normal Outlook activities.

Changing our mind set

And ironically the catalyst for this will be games.

I predict that there will be a rash of games built into task panes of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and most importantly Outlook.
Sound crazy? Yeah, I know…

But wait.

Imagine having Poker, Sudoku, Scrabble, Chess, Minesweeper and other games hanging off your Outlook 2007 To-Do Bar. Just sitting under the calendar and above your task list. Perhaps in a task pane of your email, constantly there as you go through each item. (With a ‘boss’ key of course :-)

And it won’t stop there.

Follow the Facebook model

Facebook really upped their traction when they added the developer tools to allow applications to be built into the platform.
It is a simple conceptual jump to see how this can be easily transferred to Office.

The key of course is that many of the Facebook applications available have nothing to do with social networking (ie they are using a social networking platform simply as a developer platform, focusing on the reach, not the social networking nature).

Suggestions

– So, think of any Facebook application that you currently use, and simply transfer it to Outlook.

– Next, think of any gadget currently in your Vista side bar and then imagine it in an Outlook task pane.

– Further, open it up to Skype and IM, all built into Outlook, along with Twitter and other communication tools.

And the list goes on…

Key point

The key is to use Outlook (and Office) as a developer platform, and stop limiting it to just an email, contact, calendar, to-do list related platform.

Summary

Microsoft Office is a platform. Let’s start using it as such for ALL application types***, whether they be directly related to an Office function or not. Think about reach, not functional context.

And finally

Look out for VSTOgames.com later this year…

:-)

* Mainstream – there are a lot of OBAs in enterprises already of course, so when I talk of mainstream, I am referring to that adoption rate where non-IT friends and family are happily installing the applications. Various Outlook add-ins (Plaxo, LinkedIn, etc) have come close to bridging this gap – we just haven’t had the killer Outlook app yet…

** For those not familiar with VSTO (Visual Studio Tools for Office) it is a set of tools for building applications into Office programs using Visual Studio and .Net.

*** By application types, I mean let’s make our Outlook add-ins relate to anything. Obviously, I’m not suggesting we re-write our huge standalone Winform apps into Outlook :-)

Acknowledgement

It was Scott Scovell (a former work colleague, now making waves in the BizTalk community) who first put me on to the whole Office applications idea. Three years ago he was telling me how we should be building some of our company apps into Outlook (I wasn’t convinced at the time, but as usual he was right…)

However, for me it wasn’t until I heard Andrew Coates present on VSTO at TechEd 2007 last year that the penny finally dropped. His excellent ‘Standing on the Shoulders of Giants‘ post in September was the clincher.

Note: This post is covered under my new Disclaimer ‘terms’.