vb.net v. vsto

[Guest]

Hi,

I'm currently a VB6 developer and I write mostly office type apps (not
always Office though). At this point in time I have a project where I need
to develop an add-in for Microsoft Project.

There appears to be two paths I can go down, VS.NET or VSTO.

From what I have read, VSTO is the tool if you are planning on developing an
Office Application, but only if it is Excel, Word, Outlook or InfoPath and
NameSpaces are provided to support Office.

So considering the above;

Do I have to buy both tools to do Office development (very expensive!),
Can I still develop Office Apps in VB.NET without VSTO,
In terms of what VSTO does, can it be done in VB.NET Professional.
Is VSTO mandatory for office 2007.....

I've seen the side by side product comparison, but with so much going on
with new product releases, I don't want to fork out anything until I have a
very clear understanding of how these tools relate (if they relate) to each
other.

Thanks in advance

Peter L.

 

[Michael Nemtsev]

Hello Toulousse,

T> There appears to be two paths I can go down, VS.NET or VSTO.
T> Do I have to buy both tools to do Office development (very
T> expensive!),

Not necessary. you can use COM to work with office

T> Can I still develop Office Apps in VB.NET without VSTO,

Yep, but u need to use interop to work with COM objects

T> In terms of what VSTO does, can it be done in VB.NET Professional.

yep, but this is not very convenient way

T> I've seen the side by side product comparison, but with so much going
T> on with new product releases, I don't want to fork out anything until
T> I have a very clear understanding of how these tools relate (if they
T> relate) to each other.

VSTO is not the development product, it's just extention for VS to work with
Office in more elegant and effective way

I recomend you to read these articles to get the better understanding what
the VSTO is

1) http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...e/html/wrconManagedCodeOfficeObjectModels.asp
2) http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...core/html/wrconthepowerofofficeinsolution.asp

---
WBR,
Michael Nemtsev [C# MVP] :: blog: http://spaces.live.com/laflour

"At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not
cease to be insipid." (c) Friedrich Nietzsche

 

[Norman Yuan]

VSTO is not the development product, it's just extention for VS to work
with Office in more elegant and effective way

If you are talking Visual Studio 2005 Tools For Office System, yes, IT IS a
developement tool suite, NOT just an extension for VS. MS, deliberately or
not, causes lot of confusion on this:

For VS2003, VSTO is an add-in to VS;

For VS2005, VSTO is an indepedent suite, almost the same as VS2005 Pro, you
can use either one to do most generic .NET programming(Win form app, wep
app), but the two have something mutually exclusive: with VS2005Pro, you can
do mobile device development and you can use VC++, but you can not do Office
development (unless you do COM iterop), with VSTO, you can do Office
development, but not modile device. There may be other minor functionality
exclusion on each on, but VSTO is being marketed as a development tool
suite, not an add-in. Many developers (due to the memory of VSTO2003 as
add-in) purchaged VS2005 Pro, only find out they need to buy a whole suite
(VSTO2005) in order to do Office development, and others who could ne
satisfied with VSTO2005 for their development do not know VSTO has
everything they need and bought VS2005Pro.

To make things even worse, MS now is pushing out something called Visual
Studio 2005 For 2007 Office System (or VSTO2005 SE). Guess what, it becomes
and add-in again. It can be add on top of both VS2005Pro, and VSTO2005.
Howeverm due to the confusing VSTO2005 marketing, VSTO2005 SE, when added on
top of VS2005Pro, can only do Offce2007 development on application level,
not document level (i.e. only part of VSTO2005 SE can be add-in of VS2005
Pro), when added on top of VSTO2005, if functions fully, but think of it:
VSTO2005 SE as VSTO2005's add-in? Is there some still not being confused
enough? I am almost lost what I am typing here.

IMO, whoever in MS, who made such marketing decision, should be fired
(hopefully, it is not Mr. Gates himself).

 

[RobinS]

I agree; I think it's really confusing. It took me
quite a bit of time to figure out that VSTO was
completely separate from VS2005.

Can't you do Office automation with VS2005? I did
that with VB6, and assumed it was still possible.
That was the best route for my application; it
was a VB desktop app, and I used Excel automation
for all of the reports.

Robin S
--------------------------------------

 

[Norman Yuan]

You can still do Office application automation as you do in VB6 (or almost
the same) with all edition of VS2005 (Standard, Pro, Express and VSTO2005),
Office automation is just to automate the office app through its COM object
model, with VS2005 (all editions), it is COM interop.

 

[RobinS]

That's what I figured. I'm "power-learning" VB.Net, and
have started rewriting the apps I wrote for a large
corporation in my last job, and the Excel automation
part is coming up pretty quick.
Thanks.
Robin S.