Office Developer: Difference between Office Web addin vs COM/VSTO addin

COM or VSTO add-ins are earlier Office integration solutions that run only on Office for Windows. The major difference what you see is that COM addins will be running in the user device or in the Office Client. The new Office Add-ins don’t involve code that runs on the user’s device or in the Office client. For an Office Add-in, the host application, for example Excel, reads the add-in manifest and hooks up the add-in’s custom ribbon buttons and menu commands in the UI. When needed, it loads the add-in’s JavaScript and HTML code, which executes in the context of a browser in a sandbox.

In general, Office Add-ins provides advantages over add-ins built using VBA, COM, or VSTO. I can name few of them,

• Cross-platform support:
  Office Add-ins run in Office for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Office Online. So your solution can run in Office across multiple platforms, including Office for Windows, Office Online, Office for the Mac, and Office for the iPad.

• Single sign-on (SSO):
  Office Add-ins integrate easily with users’ Office 365 accounts.

• Centralized deployment and distribution:
  Admins can deploy Office Add-ins centrally across an organization.

• Easy access via AppSource:
  You can make your solution available to a broad audience by submitting it to AppSource.

• Based on standard web technology:
  You can use any library you like to build Office Add-ins

Hope this helps.

Office 365 Developer: Office Web Add-in dialog box cannot be displayed and throws error

I came across this issue while working with my developer customer(s) who was developing an Office Web Add-in (Outlook/OWA specific)

– They designed an Outlook Web add-in, the user is asked to allow a dialog box to be displayed.
– Now the user chooses Allow, and it throws the error message (in both IE and Edge)
– The error message states, “The security settings in your browser prevent us from creating a dialog box. Try a different browser, or configure your browser so that [URL] and the domain shown in your address bar are in the same security zone.”

In order to overcome the issue, we tried adding the domain of the add-in to the list of trusted sites in Internet Explorer – it worked. Just make sure its a trusted add-in!!

Hope this helps!!

Debug: Collecting HTTP/HTTPS traffic using Fiddler Web Debugger tool

As you aware that the Fiddler tool helps you debug web applications by capturing network traffic between the Internet and test computers. The tool enables you to inspect incoming and outgoing data to monitor and modify requests and responses before the browser receives them. So this post provides the steps for capturing HTTP/HTTPS traffic with Fiddler from your application and saving it as a log file on your local machine. You can use these logs for your troubleshooting purpose.

Here are the steps to collect the traffic:

• Download Fiddler from here and install it.
• Run Fiddler and go to Tools -> Fiddler Options.
• On the HTTPS page, verify that Capture HTTPS Connects is enabled.
• Verify that Decrypt HTTPS traffic is enabled with the …from all processes option

                     

 

• Minimize Fiddler to tray & try repro the issue like,

• Try replicate the reported issue from your application
• Make sure that you successfully repro the issue
• In Fiddler, go to File -> Save -> All Sessions and save it to the local machine/drive.

This will produce a .SAZ file, which you will be able to archive & good to share it for further analysis.

Hope this helps.

AzureCon 2015

On September 29, 2015 you can attend the free, virtual event titled “AzureCon 2015”. You can hear from the experts about the latest Azure innovation and easy-to-adopt solutions. Listen as customers take the stage to share their stories. Join live Q&As and interact with the architects and engineers who are building the latest features. Also you can choose from more than 60 technical sessions—and accelerate your journey to the cloud. You can find more information and register for the event by clicking here.

Already I registered for it and wish you to join with me as well. As my interest lies in “Developer stack” sessions –few of them would be:

Azure for developers
Overview of the Azure Service Fabric
Processing NFC tag reads in a logic app
Make your enterprise mobile with App Service, Data Sync, and Xamarin
Cortana analytics for developers: embedding machine learning into your applications
Applying Azure Machine Learning to software development
Azure App Service, the fastest way to build web and mobile apps

Register, Attend, Learn, Ask and make use of it.

New name for Apps for Office and SharePoint? Office and SharePoint Add-ins

As you aware that you can use Office and SharePoint Add-ins to extend Office applications with content directly from the web or to extend SharePoint websites. But do you know the “new name” for “apps for Office and SharePoint”? Yes, the platform name will be changed from "apps for Office and SharePoint" to "Office and SharePoint Add-ins". Currently the related products, documentation, samples, and other resources are getting updated to reflect the change – so that this change will help better distinguish the extension platform from Office Add-ins (applications). The following table lists the names that are changing and the new names:

In Office Developer tools for Visual Studio (Office Web apps, VSTO, COM add-ins) it will be further differentiated as the following:

 

Hope this helps.

Video : New user experiences in Office 365 on the Web

Nick updated in a recent blog post that now we can see set of new user experiences in Office 365 on the web that provide quick access to notifications, help and what’s new feature introductions, contextual and immersive settings and the integration of Skype for Business conversations – all within the context of your work. These new features will be available across Office 365 web applications via a set of persistent icons in the top right of the navigation bar. 

Have a look at the related video:

Happy experience!!

E-Book Review – Introducing Windows 10 for IT Professionals, Preview Edition

In this post I am going to share my views on the E-Book which I finished reading in the recent time; it’s titled “Introducing Windows 10 for IT Professionals, Preview Edition (ISBN: 9780735696969)” authored by Ed Bott. The author is a well known award-winning technology journalist and wrote more than 25+ books earlier on Microsoft Windows and Office.

(Select the above link, download a copy of the eBook)

As I updated earlier, this book is a preview, a work in progress about a work in progress, lol. But it offers a great snapshot of the Windows 10 Technical Preview as of April 2015, on the eve of the BUILD Developers’ Conference in San Francisco. By design, this preview edition provides more detailed info and good book for IT Pro’s. Ed promises that he will revise and expand the content in this edition to reflect the finished product when the Windows 10 will be launched – that would be awesome for sure.

This book starts with an overview of the operating system, laying out the many changes to the user experience, and diving deep into deployment and management tools where it’s necessary. Also i can see that it’s not a in-depth guide or detailed book. But it will help you to understand how and when, to incorporate Windows 10 into your enterprise, based on your own organizational requirements. That’s the cool stuff with this book. If you’re an IT Pro, then you will find tips and tricks about the new user experience than your users want but more about management, deployment, and security in this book. I love the following info which is discussed in detail:

– Introduction about Windows 10
– Installing and deploying Windows 10
– Security
– Deploying and managing Windows Store apps
– Web browsing and Web apps
– Windows 10 Networking
– Virtualization and remote access
– Backup and recovery options in Windows 10
– Windows 10 on Phones and small tablets

So I would recommend this book; as it’s good for any IT Pro who wish to learn more about Windows 10 and it provides more detailed info, technical know-how, tips/tricks, insights. You can download a copy of the book in PDF format with Mobu and ePub formats as well.

Happy learning

Microsoft Azure Virtual Event : New Azure Service for application developers

Dear Azure application developers,

Join the virtual event to watch as Scott Guthrie announces an exciting new Microsoft Azure service for application developers. So Save the date and Add to Calendar   

Virtual Classroom : Building Web Apps with ASP.NET Jump Start

Hi there,

You can join this Jump Start session provided by Microsoft Virtual Academy – it’s tailored for experienced application developers interested in leveraging ASP.NET and Visual Studio 2012 to offer modern apps that target modern browsers. Two of Microsoft’s most seasoned ASP.NET speakers, Scott Hanselman and Jon Galloway, will provide an accelerated introduction to building modern web applications with ASP.NET 4.5 and ASP.NET MVC 4. In this course, they will target key scenarios like building mobile ready websites, social web applications as well as modern HTML5 browser features.

Technologies Covered

     •  New and advanced features in ASP.NET Web Forms
      •  ASP.NET MVC 4 and ASP.NET Web API
      •  jQuery
      •  SignalR
      •  Entity Framework
      •  Visual Studio 2012
      •  Internet Explorer 10 and HTML5
      •  Building apps for Office with HTML5
      •  Windows Azure Web Sites for ASP.NET developers

Details

February 19, 2013
8:00am-5:00pm PST

Register: In order to participate you need to register first.
Where : Live online
What  : Engaging, demo virtual class
Cost  : Free
Target Audience: Intended for developers who have at least six months of professional experience.

Hope this helps.