CODEWITHSUNDEEP
office-js
Balázs Váradi
Balázs Váradi

Reputation: 121

Office.js content add-in insertion behavior

When I installed an Office.js content add-in in Excel/PowerPoint before 4 October 2017, it automatically added an "insert button" to the Insert tab on the ribbon. If I pressed this button, the content add-in itself is inserted to the current document. However on 4 October 2017 this behavior suddenly changed and when I now install a content add-in, the "Add" button on the install screen immediately inserts the content add-in itself into the document, without creating its own button on the ribbon.

Our content add-in's manifest is almost the same as the original manifest that is generated by Visual Studio and it does not matter whether the content add-in is installed from Office Store or a local shared folder. This phenomenon also affects our older product releases as well as other third party content add-ins.

My current Office version is Version 1708 (Build 8431.2094), but I don't think it is an Office version-related issue as I rolled back to a previous version before 4 October, but it didn't help at all.

I know that content add-ins can also be chosen from the "My Add-ins" dropdown list from Add-ins group on Insert tab, but that would be a step back in UX compared to a dedicated insert button on the ribbon.

Is it an intended new behavior of inserting content add-ins or is this a bug? Can this feature be controlled by developers? Is there any way to get our insert button back? Is there any way to put an "insert content add-in button" to a custom tab that is defined for task panes?

UPDATE:

Here is the manifest we use for the content add-in:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<OfficeApp
          xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/appforoffice/1.1"
          xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
          xmlns:bt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/officeappbasictypes/1.0"
          xsi:type="ContentApp">

  <Id>xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx</Id>
  <Version>1.0.0.0</Version>
  <ProviderName>Xxxxxxxxxx</ProviderName>
  <DefaultLocale>en-US</DefaultLocale>
  <DisplayName DefaultValue="Insert stuff" />
  <Description DefaultValue="Insert stuff to current document"/>
  <IconUrl DefaultValue="https://xxxxxxx/icon.png" />
  <SupportUrl DefaultValue="http://xxxxxxxx" />
  <AppDomains>
    <AppDomain>http://localhost:12345</AppDomain>
  </AppDomains>
  <Hosts>
    <Host Name="Presentation" />
    <Host Name="Workbook" />
  </Hosts>
  <DefaultSettings>
    <SourceLocation DefaultValue="http://localhost:12345/path/to/index.html" />
    <RequestedWidth>400</RequestedWidth>
    <RequestedHeight>440</RequestedHeight>
  </DefaultSettings>
  <Permissions>ReadWriteDocument</Permissions>
</OfficeApp>

Upvotes: 4

Views: 271

Answers (1)

Michael Saunders
Michael Saunders

Reputation: 2668

The ribbon button for content add-ins was an experimental feature that we enabled temporarily for a subset of users. We're now reviewing the data from the experiment and will decide how to improve the behaviour of content add-ins on the ribbon in the future (we may decide to officially ship something similar to what we shipped in the experiment). Thanks for your feedback, and sorry for taking away something that you liked!

-Michael (program manager for add-ins)

Upvotes: 1

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