Office add-in with both taskpane and content?

Question

I spent all night looking this up and can't find it.

Is it possible to have an Excel/Office add-in that has both content and taskpane components?

Really, I want a content app, but I want extra options/buttons in the ribbon and taskpane that will trigger different actions/changes in my content app. Whenever I try to add the VersionOverrides xml node to my manifest on a content app, it always fails. None of my buttons show up. All the examples I can find that work have the namespace [...]/taskpaneappversionoverrides. I've tried changing it to [...]/contentappversionoverrides but that doesn't work either.

The reason I want this is because inserting a content app is obtuse because you have to go to Insert > My Addins > Select add in. It is hard to find. But it is really easy to trigger actions when they've installed a taskpane add in.

   <VersionOverrides xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/taskpaneappversionoverrides" xsi:type="VersionOverridesV1_0">
   <Hosts>
     <Host xsi:type="Workbook">
       <DesktopFormFactor>
         <GetStarted>
         ... custom tab, groups, buttons, etc

Humberto Lezama · Accepted Answer · 2017-02-04 00:01:41Z

3

It is not possible to launch a taskpane from a content add-in and commands are only supported for the taskpane manifest. An alternative for your scenario is to have a content add-in and then, to declutter some of the UI in your content add-in, use the dialog API (E.g. have a gear icon than then opens the dialog for more real state where you present more options).

Longer term I'm thinking we should have an API to allow you to insert web objects on the document. So the model would be to just have a single "add-in" concept, that has commands, and then from commands you use APIs to do stuff, including inserting web objects into the document, displaying dialogs, or panes.

answered Feb 4, 2017 at 0:01

Humberto Lezama

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3 Comments

dulange Over a year ago

Your proposal sounds great, exactly what I need. But as of October 2018 it seems nothing has changed so far. :(

seb Over a year ago

this makes actually sense, the task pane screams for being used as a menu

Simon McClive Over a year ago

I'd deem this as a key feature I expected to see in the add-ins API. The ability to render content add-ins from a task add-in and communicate between them feels like a use case that should have been considered as part of the initial API design. Any ETA on when we might see it?

Keyur Patel - MSFT · Accepted Answer · 2016-12-14 16:45:24Z

0

At this time you can only show a taskpane or a dialog through an add-in command. It is a scenario that we've heard and we have in our roadmap to address (not committed date yet). We can reply to this thread when the functionality is available for preview.

Is there a particular scenario you want where you'd need this to be a content add-in (i.e. a data visualization?).

thanks

answered Dec 14, 2016 at 16:45

Keyur Patel - MSFT

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2 Comments

viggity Over a year ago

my particular case is a data visualization. I don't want to clutter the content with controls. i'd rather do it in a task pane. Think of it like a pivot chart currently, you modify its behavior in a taskpane, but the chart itself is content. there are also lots of contextual actions you might want to take too and have those available via ribbon commands. Thanks!

dulange Over a year ago

Same use case here. I’d really like to visually separate controls and settings from the visualization on the sheet, i.e. having a task pane and control elements in the ribbon alongside the content area on the sheet.

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