Visual Basic Concepts

Add-Ins Overview

Consider, for a moment, a socket wrench.

By attaching different sockets to it, you can use it for different tasks. Add-ins are to the Microsoft Visual Basic development environment what sockets are to a socket wrench; they provide it additional and interchangeable functionality. Unlike a socket wrench, though, you can attach several add-ins to Visual Basic at the same time, among other things.

In the following topics, you'll discover exactly what add-ins are, what they can do to help you program in Visual Basic, and how you can create and use them.

Topics

	What is Extensibility? Explains the concept of extensibility, how extensibility is implemented in Visual Basic, and what it means to you as a Visual Basic programmer.
	What is an Add-In? Describes what an add-in is in Visual Basic and the assorted add-in variants.
	Creating a Basic Add-In Leads you step-by-step though the process of creating a simple, basic working add-in. Afterward, there is an explanation of what was done and why.