I am new in Office add-in development and little bit confused about creation JS plug-ins for Outlook. Actually we can create one add-in which will be available on all platforms: Outlook on Mac/PC, Outlook.com and Outlook 365.
But what about tools for it? According Outlook development documentation, we can use Yeoman generator for creating Office add-ins. However in my VisualStudio Community 2015 is type of project like "Web add-in", where I can chose Outlook add-in. So is there some difference between Yeoman generator and VisualStudio Web add-in projects?
Visual Studio is the main tool for creating Outlook plugins. You can also use Visual Studio Code for developing web-based solutions.
Office add-in is nothing else as "manifest.xml" file + your web application (HTML + JS). Web application is what your VS Code is help you to create. The manifest part is something which you able to write yourself, coy it from an example or use YO Generator to produce it for you. More on how to build office add-ins: Office Add-ins with VS Code and how to use generator: Yo Code - Extension Generator
To answer your question "is there some difference between Yeoman generator and VisualStudio Web add-in projects?": There is no fundamental difference. First choose whether to develop your Outlook Web Add-in with VS or with some non-VS tool. If you use VS, then use the project templates in VS. If you use any other development tool, use the yeoman-generated templates.
Occasionally, templates can get out-of-date. For example, recommended practices may change, or the manifest XML schema may be expanded. As a general rule, the yeoman-generated templates are updated more frequently than the ones generated in VS. For this reason, there may be small differences in the templates (besides the differences that are inherent to the differences in the tools).
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If I go to create a new project in Visual Studio, the add-in template it generates is based on JavaScript and uses JQuery framework, but I'd like to create an add-in using React (so I can use Fabric UI for react) and Typescript, is there an option for doing that?
I know that if I can use Visual Code and Node to create a project like this, 'yo office' has the option to generate a template for many different types of add-ins, but I found no option for this in Visual Studio.
The Office Tools in Visual Studio do not have that option, but it's a great idea! Please go to Office Developer User Voice and suggest it.
I found some ways below.
1. Add-in Express
2. VSTO
3. unmanaged c++
I'm not sure is this right?
And which way can compile only a dll without any dependency.
Using outlook add in, could I get the drag attachment event?
You will be surprised but there is only one way for developing Office COM add-ins - implement the IDTExtensibility2 interaface. All the paths you mentioned follow this pattern and have their own pros and cons.
You can use managed programming languages for developing an add-in as well (C# or VB.NET). C++ is not required. Erlier VS versions had a template for that called "shared COM add-in". VSTO and Add-in Express provides shims (loaders) that create a new Application domain to run your add-in code in isolation from other add-ins. It is up to you which framework to use, or just not to use any.
Can someone give me a quick explanation of when I would use Visual Studio 2008 Outlook 2007 Ad-In project type? and how would that compare to developing a bunch of outlook macros directly in outlook?
Basically, I want to have some sort of application read email (with attachments) from a pop3 email box, do some filtering/editing/validation of the subject/sender/content and then if certain conditions are met, save the attachments to a local file, and then add an entry into an SQL server database table (i.e. date/sender/subject/message).
Seems there are at least 10 different ways to do this....so between an outlook macro and a VS Office Project, how do I pick?
I am not clear, if I create this solution as a Visual Studio outlook add-in, where does it run? Is it loaded into outlook, does it run as a separate process and communicates back and forth with outlook? if outlook is not running, does it start it?
An Outlook Add-on is a compiled component that uses the Outlook API to perform the tasks you need. A macro/VB script is an interpreted script that actually uses the same API. The add-on approach is better if you want to deploy your functionality.
When you work on an Outlook add-on in Visual Studio, you'll be creating a .NET component, which integrates into the Outlook application, which is written in C++ so uses COM. You'll have to be careful about managed/unmanaged types and releasing objects you retrieve from Outlook.
I have recently completed just such a tool, but I chose to use Add-in Express (http://www.add-in-express.com/). These guys provide a layer of abstraction over the [challenging] Outlook API and also provide some excellent support if you're stuck.
In my case, with Add-in Express, I "run" by setting Outlook as the application command to run, in the Project properties. Add-in Express sorts out the installation of the add-on within Outlook. So when I press "Run", Outlook starts and my add-in is displayed, which may be debugged in the normal fashion. I'm not sure how VSTO (Visual Studio Tools for Office) works in this respect - or at least, I can't remember.
This is an example of an outlook add-in..
Personally, I don't see macros distributable.
I want to create a custom Addon/plugin for Outlook 2003, to support integrated functionality with a task management system.
I am unable to find many good development resources for the same.
Can someone please explain Outlook 2003 architecure and development of a plugin.
Good links/resources are also welcome.
Here is a tutorial on outlook architecture getting started building Outlook 2003 plugins from MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa289167.aspx
There is also a huge list of resources here: http://www.microeye.com/resources/res_tech_vsnet.htm
Good luck!
What you want can be done.
The bottom line is that you need to use Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Studio 2008 plus Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) plus Outlook 2003 (of course) to build an "Adddin" for Outlook.
Addins are quite complicated to write mostly because Outlook has eccentricities that are not well documented. For example, a method Outlook.MailItem.GetHashCode() is not always the same even for the same object despite what you might expect from something as seemingly absolute as a 'HashCode' for an object. Knowing that and many other quirks of the VSTO+Outlook API are for what the professionals get paid. There are MANY quirks. If you are learning then you will need to start with the resources Gdeglin has provided.
Also look at the MSDN VSTO forum:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vsto/threads <- very active!
And Outlook code: http://www.outlookcode.com/
Also here is a Google search on MSDN for various VSTO 'tips'.
Is is possible to deploy VS add-ins using ClickOnce? How can I do it?
Take a look at Securing and Deploying Add-Ins. And the subtopic Securing Add-ins by Using ClickOnce.
I haven't personally used them, but I found them while searching with a similar question as yours.
#Rob: The links you have provided is Add-in's for Applications (aka MS Office), not for Add-in's for Visual Studio (as I understand the question). The Add-in object model in Visual Studio does not support ClickOnce - unfortunately.
To deploy Add-in's for Visual Studio, visit http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd393694.aspx.
I'm pretty sure that you cannot do this. ClickOnce is designed for side-effect free deployments, and don't impact registry (except perhaps for file associations) or "Program Files" (having their own repository).
I'm pretty sure you'll need msi for this.