Creating a Plug in/ Add In

[Arc]

Say i wanted to make an add in for VB. How exactly do you go about it? I mean how do you tell VB that you have made an add in and it should show it in the add in section? This question pretty much goes for any program as well.

I know it has to be a .dll and you have to regester it and all, but i really have no idea how to get inside a program and make my program part of the other program.

[gdebacker]

To make a VB add-in start by creating a New Add-In project. A new add-in project has a frmAddIn and a Connect designer. This will compile to an activeX dll. You can compile it to the VB6 directory and VB will find it and you can load it from the Add-In Manager. When you are done with it you can install it to any folder and register it like any other activex dll and VB will find it.

Greg

PS One bit of advice I can give you is to use a lot or error handling. When an add-in gets an un handled error you have to close VB in order to remove it from memory.

[Arc]

Hey, thanks alot for the info. I am starting an Add in project. I have never made a .dll project before.

2 questions.

1) When i run the project from VB it doesn't show. Do i have to compile the project and run another instance of VB to test it out?

2) once i save the project it saves as a .dll a .lib and a .exp file. How do i reopen the project? Clicking on these does nothing

[Cheeko]

Go to the activex section of this website, there are some cracking articles by karl moore on ways of doing it, not sure iof this is what you want, but it tells you how to make your own dll's and ocx's

[gdebacker]

1) When i run the project from VB it doesn't show. Do i have to compile the project and run another instance of VB to test it out?

You can do that. What I do is compile it to the VB6 folder and then load it as a normal add-in with the add-in manager. You then need to unload it before you can compile it again. It is kind of a pain.

2) once i save the project it saves as a .dll a .lib and a .exp file. How do i reopen the project? Clicking on these does nothing

Just reload it as you do any other vb project by double clicking or opening the VBP file.

Greg

[Arc]

Ok my bad. I compiled the project but forgot to save it so i had no vbp file there. /bonk.

Thanks again.