Visual Studio Add-in creation tips : Cannot see the created add-in under Add-in manager in Visual Studio

Problem :

I made an add-in in visual studio and it is visible in any instance of visual studio under Add-in Manager. but if i want to work with the project having a copy of it to another machine, what should be done to make it visible under the add-in manager.

basically, i want be able to let VS of any of my PCs to detect the add-ins that i have created in it or copied from some other machine.

Solution : 

You need to register the assembly as add-in for VS using an .AddIn file in some of the well-known locations.

The .AddIn file for add-ins that you create are typically in the folder C:\Users\<user>\Documents\Visual Studio <version>\AddIns.

Inside the .AddIn file there is a <Assembly> tag whose value you need to adjust if needed to point to the assembly path. (Open the AddIn file in a text editor)

Note the highlighted line in the above image. The location that mentioned within the Assembly tag should point to the .dll file of the addIn that you have created. Then the next time you open Visual Studio, your addIn will be visible.

Hope it was a useful tip to you.

Visual Studio Add-in creation tips : How to change the default icon of an add-in?

Problem :

When you create an add-in Visual Studio, you will see the default set icon as a smiley. May be your requirement needs some other proper icon to be used. The question is how to change the default add-in icon easily.

Solution :

-Open a solution that was created by using the Add-in project type.

-Open the Connect.cs file and navigate to the below shown line in OnConnection() method.

Note the number "59" in the line where the Command object is initialized. This is considered as the index of the current icon of the add-in. You can change this number to a different standard icon to get a new icon.

It is simple as that. Further more you can refer the below shown list to identify which icon stands for which number you specify.

You can see the complete list from the below reference :

http://www.kebabshopblues.co.uk/2007/01/04/visual-studio-2005-tools-for-office-commandbarbutton-faceid-property/

Visual Studio Add-in creation tips : Build Error.Unable to delete dll file

Problem :

I was working on an add-in in visual studio where it gave me the above error from the second time onward while building the add-in project. As I searched about the issue, it seemed some other process is being locking the dll file of my add-in.

I made sure that all other projects which are using the add-in are closed but it didn't fix the issue. I even turned the virus guard off since they too may cause some issues like this.So, I manually went to the bin folder of where the add-in project is created and deleted the dll file. then onward the build was successful. but this is only until I close the add-in project in visual studio. once I restart, make some changes and rebuild, the error pops up again is this a bug or is there a way to fix this issue?

Solution : 

What cause this issue may be your Visual Studio run the add-in when your Visual Studio is started. You can disable Add-ins (e.g. “Tools” | “Add-in Manager”) and run “devenv.exe /safemode”. 

When I start visual studio the add-in runs automatically.This happens because while creating the add-in using the wizard, I checked 'Microsoft Visual Studio 2010' as an application host and then in the next step i too have checked the option saying that I would like to load the Add-in when the host application starts (see the image below). So, automatically, if another project or a website is running at the moment when I tried to modify the add-in in another instance, the add-in project file is getting locked.