Gary Depue's VSTA Blog - All Comments

Office 2007 VSTA scarlet pimpernel « Smurf on Spreadsheets

Office 2007 VSTA scarlet pimpernel « Smurf on Spreadsheets — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 11:33:19 GMT

PingBack from http://smurfonspreadsheets.wordpress.com/2007/11/22/office-2007-vsta-scarlet-pimpernel/

re: Can I use VSTA to create a program or add-ins that run on a mobile device, like a PDA?

Gary — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 18:56:30 GMT

My mention of the CF design time was probably misleading. The CF design time actually runs on the desktop computer (running the full-size CLR/.Net framework).

I am assuming that, on mobile devices, ISVs want to deploy VSTA Addins for Runtime only and ISVs do not expect to create addin on the mobile device using VSTA's Design Time (IDE).

Here’s a clearer description:

In the case of the desktop .NET Framework both designtime and runtime code is executed by the desktop CLR. But for .NET CF, the designtime code is executed by the desktop CLR (hosted inside Visual Studio) while the runtime code is executed by the device CLR. This implies that for .NET CF components the designtime code targets the desktop .NET Framework while the runtime code targets the .NET CF.

(http://blogs.msdn.com/parthopdas/archive/2005/10/10/479085.aspx)

So (1) ideally, ISV wants to design/build the addin once (on desktop) and deploy twice (load/run on desktop and PDA).

The next best (2), would be to design once (VSTA IDE on desktop), build twice (on desktop and CF design time environment), and deploy twice (load/run on desktop and PDA).

.Net remoting is not supported by CF. Therfore, only until the addin ceases to be an addin (reference to proxy assembly) and becomes a generic library assembly is there any possible CF code reuse. Creating generic library assemblies is not the intended purpose of the VSTA IDE. Even then, the assembly must be recompiled for the CF target, using a CF compiler, which may not be possible in VSTA’s IDE.

re: Warning: 'AppAddIn' is not CLS-compliant because it derives from 'Application', which is not CLS-compliant.

Gary — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 15:42:13 GMT

This warning is probably because the assembly attribute is not specified in the corresponding project templates. Specifying CLSCompliant(true) will turn on the checking. Omitting the attribute or specifying CLSCompliant(false) will turn it off. The attribute may be specified at lower scope as well. For example instead of turning it off for the whole assembly the compliance can be turned off for specific class only. <CLSCompliant(False)> Partial Class AppAddIn Dim WithEvents d As Drawing