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Top 20 cool new features of VSTA

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Now that VSTA has RTM’d (See KD Hallman’s announcement at https://blogs.msdn.com/vsta ) I would like to call out all of the great features of VSTA. You can see some of these features in action today as part of InfoPath 2007. Just install InfoPath 2007, open a form and press Alt-Shift-F12. The VSTA IDE will open and you can easily add your VB or C# macro code behind the form. I can also follow the walkthrough in my MSDN article to learn more about VSTA.

Leverages the innovative Visual Studio (VS) toolset

1. Multi-language support – VB and C#
2. Macro Recoding
3. Windows Forms designer
4. IntelliSense & Code Tasks
5. End-user debugging features: breakpoints, watch/auto/locals windows

Supports connected systems development

6. Web services-based development
7. Fully leverages the .NET Framework
8. Running and debugging 32-bit and 64-bit add-ins
9. Running partial trusted add-ins
10. Client and Server programming
11. Common VSTA/VSTO runtime architecture for seamless up-leveling of solutions

Graduated host integration capabilities – "use what you need when you need it"

12. Low barrier to entry – get started in about two days
13. Add more functionality as desired/needed over time
14. Runs side x side with VBA

Add-in Management

15. Simplifies loading and unloading of add-ins
16. Ability to manage application domain creation
17. Host defined discovery and qualification supporting repository based scenarios

VSTA SDK includes

18. Redistributable VS based IDE and Runtime
19. Integration tools
20. Help documentation, Samples and walk throughs

Comments

  • Anonymous
    December 07, 2006
    Paul Stubbs, a Program Manager with the VSTA team, blogs about the top 20 cool new features of VSTA

  • Anonymous
    January 21, 2007
    Tried hard to get information on the internet about how to use VSTA in Excel 2007. It seems to be a secret. Can anyone from Microsoft give a clear statement: a) YES it works for EXCEL 2007 (and how). b) NO it does not work for EXCEL 2007 at this time. Thank you!

  • Anonymous
    January 22, 2007
    The short answer is that VSTA is not integrated into Excel, only InfoPath 2007. VSTA like VBA can be integrated into a host application. In Office 2007 only InfoPath has VSTA integration. Excel does have integration with VSTO which allows you to do programming using Visual Studio. One main difference between VSTA and VSTO is that VSTA is part of and installed by the host application. VSTO is part of and installed by Visual Studio to program against Office applications.