Add visual studio add-in to extension gallery

Question

I've written an add-in for visual studio and i'm trying to get it into the extension gallery but I'm just not able to. I tried the vsix templates and a few other things but I just don't get how to do it.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

My specific problem is that I created a Visual Studio Add-In project which requires a .addin file. It doesn't look like VSIX editor supports adding those projects to a VSIX project. I added it as MEF extention and the VSIX installs but the add-in isn't working.

I found this link http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd393694.aspx which states VSIX doesn't support add-ins so I should create an MSI.

Answer 1

You can't create a vsix for your add-in. Create an MSI installer and submit it to the gallery that way. You lose the ability to enable/disable the add-in via extension manager but at least users can get it.

Answer 2

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/quanto/archive/2009/05/26/what-is-a-vsix.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2010/01/19/using-the-vsix-manifest-editor.aspx