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    Forums Merged into This Forum
    John Boylan Microsoft employee
    The following forums have been merged into this forum: Visual Studio WPF/SL Designer, Visual Studio Guidance Automation Toolkit, Developer Documentation and Help System, Visual Studio Report Controls, and Visual Studio Editor. 

Visual Studio LightSwitch Extensibility announcements

Visual Studio Tools for Applications (VSTA) announcements

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    Visual Studio Tools For Applications (VSTA) 2012 Released!
    Xiaoying Guo Microsoft employee

    You can get the VSTA 2012 and VSTA 2012 SDK through the links below:

    In VSTA 2012 release, we are introducing several changes to the licensing model as well as how you integrate VSTA into your application:

    • There is no longer a licensing fee for the VSTA 2012 redistributable components. Your organization can distribute and use the VSTA 2012 redistributable components free of charge.
    • VSTA 2012 no longer provides its own Visual Studio Environment for authoring macros. Instead, Visual Studio 2012 Professional (or above) is required to develop VSTA macros and add-ins. VSTA has two primary modes of operation: with Visual Studio 2012 Professional (or above) installed and standalone. In standalone mode, VSTA provides your application with the means to load, compile, and run end user customizations. With Visual Studio 2012 Professional (or above) installed on your user’s machine, VSTA extends that functionality with the means to edit and debug those customizations.
    • VSTA 2012 supports .NET Framework 4.5.
    • VSTA 2012 presents a new and simplified API for integrating design-time experiences into your application using either managed (Visual C# or Visual Basic .NET) or unmanaged (Visual C++) code. The new VSTA hosting API simplifies tasks such as finding the installation of Visual Studio, launching the external process, and synchronizing save state, making integration significantly easier than previous versions.
    • With VSTA 2012, users can upgrade projects from Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Applications and Visual Studio 2008 Tools for Applications, compile, and run them.
    • VSTA 2012 no longer requires your application host to provide a runtime library to run. This gives you the flexibility to choose the method of running user code best tailored to the host application.

    Minimum System Requirement:

    • Windows 7
    • .NET Framework 4.5
    • 2 GB of RAM
    • 4 MB of hard disk space

    Runtime requirement for VSTA 2012:

    Requirement to enable editing and debugging for VSTA customization:

    • Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 Professional, Premium or Ultimate


Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) announcements

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    VSTO for Visual Studio 2013 RTM
    Cindy Meister MVP MVP

    The newest version of Visual Studio - 2013 - is now available.

    For VSTO developers in particular, new in this release is the ability to code-sign VSTO solutions with SHA-256 certificates.  The latest release also supports Office 2013 right-out-of-the-box without requiring a separate download, and the Office 2013 templates can now target the latest .NET Framework 4.5.1.

    Visual Studio 2013 also delivers a broad set of tooling for the new apps for Office and apps for SharePoint.  Some highlights include the ability to create MVC SharePoint apps, enhancements around app-publishing, and a new set of tooling around Cloud Business Apps that integrate seamlessly with Office 365 services.  Learn more on the apps for Office and SharePoint blog.

    Tip: 
    Just like Visual Studio 2012, Visual Studio 2013 continues to support the Office 2010 templates.  However, to reduce clutter, we have re-categorized the project templates according to the .NET Framework version that they support.  So, if you're looking for the Office 2010 templates, be sure to adjust the ".NET Framework" dropdown to ".NET Framework 4.0".

    We hope you enjoy Visual Studio 2013 and the many great features that this IDE has to offer!

    ~ Michael Zlatkovsky | Program Manager, Visual Studio Tools for Office & Apps for Office


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    Roadmap for Apps for Office, VSTO, and VBA
    Cindy Meister MVP MVP

    Many folks have been asking about the emerging "apps for Office" model, and what it means for the future of VSTO.  Rest assured that VSTO continues to be alive and well.  In fact, many existing automation scenarios continue to be best served by VSTO for now.  At the same time, there are many exciting opportunities to look forward in apps for Office: for example, the ability to better integrate with web content and JavaScript/CSS libraries, support for additional programming languages and platforms, support for host applications beyond the desktop versions of Office, and new distribution, lifecycle management, and monetization opportunities through the Office Store.

    To learn more, please see the blog post:  "Roadmap for Apps for Office, VSTO, and VBA".

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    Documentation for Office 2013 Ribbon controls now available
    Cindy Meister MVP MVP

    I know the documentation for Office 2013 is still somewhat limited, but hopefully the following link will help.

    Microsoft Office Document: [MS-CustomUI2] Supporting Documentation - http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=727

    From here, you should be able to download the *.txt files for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, plus the imageMso information. Once a file is downloaded, it can be opened in Excel to make it easier to look through all the controls.

    Best Regards,
    Nathan O.
    Microsoft Online Community Support

Visual Studio Setup and Installation announcements

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