Creating the New Add-in

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Overview

"Men are always wanting to do something great. Let them overcome themselves, for that is the greatest conquest".

--Henry Drummond

In this chapter, you'll find that you have graduated from Add-ins 101. There are over 3,400 classes in the .NET Framework. The greatest challenge to you as the developer is to determine which class (and its associated methods and properties) provides the functionality that you need to do the job you need done. In aregular Windows application this task is fairly difficult. However, when it comes to developing more complex add-in functionality, sometimes this task is down-right frustrating, to put it lightly.

For the demonstration of the objects in this chapter, you'll create a new add-in rather than add to the complexity of the add-in you've been creating thus far. You'll add more functionality to that add-in in future chapters, but for now, you'll go back to the Add-in Wizard and create a new add-in.

This chapter's add-in will demonstrate Windows Forms automation. In it, you will see the code to perform the tasks in the following list, and you will see it all done through automation:

• Create a Windows application project.

• Add a VB form to the project.

• Add to and manipulate two command buttons on the form.

• Delete one of the two command buttons.

• Add a handler for the Click event for one of the buttons.

• Add a menu and submenus to the form.

Since you've already seen how to create an add-in using the wizard, I won't repeat the step-by-step images that illustrate how to do so. Rather, I'll just list the steps and tell you the values that I've set in each of the wizard steps.

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