Create an Addin - xla, COM, VSTO, Office or what

[Auntiejack56]

Hi, I'm about to create an Excel addin, and would like to deploy as an Excel task pane addin rather than a VBA xla. I prefer this path because it makes the code more secure, the pane is a great UI that will provide guidance for users, and it will run in Excel without needing to download and install anything.
But I am frankly puzzled by the number of possible create and deploy pathways.
Optimally, I'd like to create the add-in and host it on my website for private use by clients, but it appears that the only way to host for non-domain users is in the Microsoft App Store.
If anyone has experience in the area, is it possible to host the add-in on my own website? And if so, how?
Also, can the task pane open my site's webpage in order to assist a client to customize their particular version before using it?
Any and all other tips or links to better information would be appreciated (I've found the MS tutorial for the basic task pane, sideloaded the example and it works fine, so I'm at least that far ahead of the game).
Thanks,
Jack

 

[Auntiejack56]

Well, a year and more has gone by, and no-one has risen to this one. I've got the task pane working, and the Excel add-in is starting to do what I want, but there are still hiccups, and I need to know more about how the task panes deploy before I can take this further.

Does anybody know of a book or online resource that will assist me with the nuts and bolts of Excel web add-ins?

 

[Edgar_]

What hiccups are you facing? Last time I checked, the docs for these things were scarce and incomplete at best. But I've managed to deploy two commercial add-ins using the VSTO scaffolding. I used ClickOnce to deploy them, and while it has a fancy feature for sending updates through FTP, I just update them the old-fashioned way, and it worked fine for me, I don't have that many customers to worry about mass downloads.

Now, when it comes to web add-ins, they do the job, but you gotta keep an eye on which web browser tech they rely on. In my opinion, VSTO is the way to go, especially if you're dealing with folks who haven't upgraded their Office in a while. VSTO is nice with both old and new versions but web add-ins require you to know the web browser version they will run on.

 

[Auntiejack56]

Thanks, maybe worthwhile to take a closer look at VSTO. My hiccups are to do with deployment and possibly caching - I couldn't get some changes to appear in the pane after repeated rebuilds and restarts. Then I tried repeatedly refreshing and reloading the pane (which was showing the old version) in Excel, until it failed to reload. Then after that any code changes, each followed by a single rebuild/restart, appeared immediately?!

 

[Edgar_]

As far as I recall, you have to open either edge or Internet explorer and then erase the browsing history, try it out and let me know, I recall doing that before my builds and it worked, I was using React

 

[strive4peace]

@Auntiejack56 re: nuts and bolts of Excel web add-ins -- this is an old tutorial but as far as I know, the basics haven't changed ... but the user interface has! Maybe this will be helpful never-the-less.

Office App Store: JavaScript API Tutorial for Office using Excel (15:16)