I've done some mucking around on Google but I still can't find what project this would be in Visual Studio. I want to create a GUI add in for Excel, for example a dock window on a ribbon with a windows form. What project would this be in Visual Studio? I have tried Excel add in but I don't know if this has the GUI component I'm looking for.
Microsoft offers you "Visual Studio Tools for Office" (VSTO) for this purpose, see here for more information.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Studio_Tools_for_Office#External_links
But if you want a more lightweight solution, and you need it only for Excel, I suggest you have a look at Excel DNA
http://exceldna.codeplex.com/
This is freeware, mature, works even with the Express editions of Visual Studio and different from VSTO you can combine every supported .NET version with every Excel version and every Visual Studio version you like. I have created some Excel addins with Excel DNA on my own, and I love it.
Related
I want to open a program (written in Visual basic 6) to be open in Visual Studio.net. Please guide, how could I do that?
While trying to open VB6 (.vbp file) program directly from the OPEN project option in visual studion.net, I was getting this error,
"Visual Basic 6 (.vbp) files cannot be opened in Visual Studio"
I am trying to open in VS 2010.
Visual Studio 2010 does not support VB6 projects. See the link here
From the msdn documentation:
Visual Studio 2010 does not provide tools for upgrading applications and projects from Visual Basic 6.0. If you want to upgrade your project from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic 2010, you can use the upgrade tools provided with earlier versions of Visual Studio and then upgrade the project again in Visual Studio 2010.
Visual Basic Tools for Visual Studio
There's a plugin called Visual Basic Tools for Visual Studio that provides the following features:
load classic VB workspace- and project-files and offers quick access to the extension´s options
integrates with the solution explorer and the code editor having support for syntax highlighting, basic outlining (allows to expand/collapse methods, properties and types) as well as navigation bar support.
Classes, Types, Modules, Forms and Controls can be inspected using the Object Browser and Class View.
From the reading, it's unclear if you can actually build the project, though it does say:
The import tool creates a new solution and MSBuild compatible projects.
Links to the plugin by VS Version
2012-2013
2015
2017
RAD Basic
There is also an independent IDE called RAD Basic that claims the following features:
New and modern IDE (Integrated Development Environment) with form designer supporting drag and drop, code completion, refactoring tools, etc.
RAD Basic Compiler: Compiler 100% compatible with your VB6 project (vbp, frm, bas and cls files). Generate native executables (exe and ocx) in both 32-bit and 64-bit.
RAD Basic Forms: Reimplementation of common VB6 controls and components supporting 32-bit and 64-bit.
etc.
Speaking from my experience, it's not easy to open a Visual Basic 6.0 project in any versions of Visual Studio above 2008.
Although 2008 and below versions do provide an automatic function to convert Vb6 code to the VB.net framework. But, the problem starts after the conversion - it can skip some code, add functions/variables on its own, or modify the functional behavior on its own, and with that the VB.proj will be created with errors and you will not be able to open it anywhere as a solution file. The same with any 3rd party tools.
If you want to open the VB6 code try Visual Basic 6.0 Portable edition.
But headache will still follow you there, please refer this link
Installation of VB6 on Windows 7 / 8 / 10
Make sure you are clicking on the project file itself... Right click on the file and select "Open With" and select your visual studio program. It may need to be converted and if so, it will prompt you to convert the project.
Thanks!
Download Visual Basic Tools for Visual Studio,allows to work with classic VB workspaces and projects
I've installed Visual Studio on my private PC, the version is "Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2019", version 16.1.6.
In order to prepare a job interview, I'd like to do some basic MFC/AFX programming, starting by the basic CMapStringToString example from the Microsoft website.
This, however, seems not to work, as I don't have access to the mentioned file afxcoll.h. Indeed: there is no file, called afx*.h on my PC.
Is this a limitation of my free downloaded Visual Studio installation, or is there any add-in, add-on, extension or whatever I can install in order to work with CMapStringToString objects?
Thanks in advance
You need to explicitly install MFC support in Visual Studio - which you can do on Community editions:
Open Visual Studio Installer from your Start Menu
Click the Modify button
Select the Individual Components tab
Scroll down to SDKs, Libraries and frameworks
Check the various MFC/ATL options for various platforms
I have Visual Studio 2010 Professional installed. But for a client I do need Visual Studio 2008 (to avoid some upgrades that are note compatible with vs2010)
It is my job's notebook, so everything must be original and legal. And both, the client and my boss want to avoid licences costs. ANYWAY... it seems that my notebook already has some version of vs2008, I need to know if it is too muche reduced or if it will work to develop.
I can open a vs2008 that seems pretty much the same, also the about screen. But at "Add or Remove Programs" I just only have "Visual Studio Tools for Applications 2.0"
Finnaly when I run the app, it works, but the code is not recognize, it is shown as it is notepad.
Here are some screenshots that may help... THANKS ALL!!
VSTA is sort of a replacement for VBA, i.e. you can use VS to write .NET code to extend and automate thrid-party applications that are designed to support it. It appears that that is the only VS 2008 component that you have installed so you cannot open VB or C# projects or any of that stuff. If you want a legal copy of VS 2008 that you don't have to pay for then you'll need to look at an Express edition, although that may lack some features that you need. 2008 Express editions are hard to come by now too, as they are not offered for download any more by Microsoft.
What are these non-upgradeable parts of your project?
We are using a commercial software that has its own scripting language with which you can customize the product. It is very tedious to write code in it without any help from an IDE and it has its own compiler.
Is it possible to use Visual Studio and create an environment for me to write scripts in this language and get the help of intellisense and syntax highlightning and other good things you find in an IDE? Ideally I would like to bind a button in VS to launch the external compiler and compile the code so I don't have to switch windows all the time as well.
If this is possible is it a very hard thing to accomplish?
Yes, this is certainly possible. You need to create a Visual Studio Shell add-in with custom language services and text editors. You need to install the appropriate Visual Studio SDK and then you'd continue to:
Create a custom Editor and/or designer
Add a language service
Add Project and Item templates
You're allowed to ship Visual Studio Isolated Shell with your application (license required and there are some limitations) so that your users don't need to have Visual Studio Professional installed.
There are a number of open-source projects that provide a custom editor, language services etc in Visual Studio, these could provide a nice place to research how things are done, next to teh Visual Studio SDK documentation:
PyTools, which is a Visual Studio editor for IronPython
Phalanger, which contains a Visual Studio editor for PHP
PoShTools, a Visual Studio service for PowerShell editing right inside Visual Studio
You'll probably want to dig into MsBuild as well, since Visual Studio will expect you to create a project file if you want to edit a collection of files and compile them. MsBuild could in turn call your own compiler, like it calls csc to compile C# code for example.
Creating Project Types
I'm working on a Visual Studio 2008 Add-in that shows files from SharePoint. It is possible to edit file in SharePint from within Visual Studio, and I would like to give a view of the difference between the current document and the version saved in ShaerPoint and the last published version in SharePoint.
In the past there was Super Diff, but is it still supported for Visual Studio 2008? Is it posible to control it from code? Any other tools?
If you are looking for a free one, there is SourceGear's DiffMerge.
This very useful article describes the command line values for many of the diff tools you can incorporate into Visual Studio.
This article describes Changing the diff/merge program used by Visual Studio. It targets BeyondCompare (commercial) but the steps can be followed for any diff tool (using the arguments from the previous link).
There is also WinMerge.
EDIT: Just noticed you want to be able to control from code. Both of these tools have a command line interface.