Introduction to Visual Studio Tools for Applications
Visual Studio Tools for Applications enables you to provide a way for end users to customize your application. By integrating a runtime framework and a redistributable integrated development environment (IDE) into your host application, you enable end-user developers to customize your host application by creating add-ins written in either Visual Basic or Visual C#. Add-ins change the behavior of the application to meet the needs of the end users.
Key Concepts
Visual Studio Tools for Applications provides tools that help you perform the following activities:
Expose your application's object model to add-ins, regardless of whether your application is built upon COM or the .NET Framework. For more information, see Creating Proxies.
Create Visual Basic and Visual C# project templates that end users use to create add-ins for your application. For more information, see Creating Project Templates (Visual Studio Tools for Applications).
Discover and load add-ins using a process that isolates them from the host application. For more information, see Discovering and Loading Add-Ins.
Incorporate the redistributable IDE into your application so that add-in developers have a seamless experience when moving from the application to the IDE. For more information, see Incorporating the Integrated Development Environment.
Extend the redistributable IDE while add-in projects are open. For more information, see Creating In-Process Hosts.
Dynamically modify host items and host objects at design time. For more information, see Dynamically Creating and Modifying Host Items and Host Objects in an Add-in Project.
Deploy Visual Studio Tools for Applications with your application, and optionally implement a ClickOnce deployment process that enables your customers to apply security checks to add-ins that they distribute to other users. For more information, see Securing and Deploying Add-Ins.
Update the host application and add-ins independently of each other.
See Also
Concepts
What's New in Visual Studio Tools for Applications 2.0
Installing Visual Studio Tools for Applications
Overview of Integrating Visual Studio Tools for Applications
System Requirements for the Visual Studio Tools for Applications IDE