.Net 6 Support

Add-in Express™ Support Service
That's what is more important than anything else

.Net 6 Support
 
mio


Guest


Hi,
we would like to upgrade our addins to .Net 6 after it releases in November. There are many reasons, .Net 6 will be an improvement not only for us, but for many addin developers:
* There are significant performance improvements in comparison to .Net Framework
* The .net world as a whole moves toward .Net 5/6. In order to not fall behind, we have to take that step as well.
* Newer C# versions are only really supported in newer frameworks
* .Net 6 will be a long term stable release
Therefore, it would be great, if ADX could support .Net 6 when it comes out!
As I recall, you already had some successfull tests for .Net 5 which should not be too different from .Net 6. If you need beta testing at a later stage, we are very happy to help you out.
Posted 27 Jul, 2021 05:46:52 Top
Andrei Smolin


Add-in Express team


Posts: 18829
Joined: 2006-05-11
Thank you, Fabian!

We may need your help this autumn.


Andrei Smolin
Add-in Express Team Leader
Posted 29 Jul, 2021 08:53:43 Top
mio


Guest


Hi Andrei,
that's good to hear! We're very much looking forward to it.
Just give us a shout when you have something :).
Posted 05 Aug, 2021 04:43:42 Top
Andrei Smolin


Add-in Express team


Posts: 18829
Joined: 2006-05-11
Sure.


Andrei Smolin
Add-in Express Team Leader
Posted 05 Aug, 2021 04:51:19 Top
mio


Guest


Hi Andrei,
do you already have any news for us regarding the .NET6 ADX?
Posted 14 Oct, 2021 06:35:34 Top
Andrei Smolin


Add-in Express team


Posts: 18829
Joined: 2006-05-11
Hello Fabian,

Yes, I do. I prepare an official response explaining why we won't be able to support .NET 5/6.


Andrei Smolin
Add-in Express Team Leader
Posted 14 Oct, 2021 06:54:54 Top
mio


Guest


Since this is a very important topic for us, can you please give us a short summary on why this isn't possible? Thank you.
Posted 20 Oct, 2021 07:15:07 Top
Andrei Smolin


Add-in Express team


Posts: 18829
Joined: 2006-05-11
Hello All,

Add-in Express for Office and .Net will not support .NET 5-6.

There are breaking changes that would require a lot of work from us:

1. Register for COM Interop is missing on .NET 5-6 projects => that means how Add-in Express registers your add-in must change.
2. Hosting API has changed => the add-in loader must work differently.
3. AppDomain is declared deprecated => we wrote about why loading an add-in in a separate AppDomain is correct and now, all of a sudden, we would need to review/rewrite the complete code of Add-in Express.

In some way, the above is okay as programming is a shaky business, and we know many examples when someone needs to rewrite something from scratch.

But now, Microsoft states that .NET Framework and .NET 5-6 cannot be loaded into the same process; the process being Excel, Outlook, Word, etc. What does that restriction mean? The very first add-in that the host application loads will also load .NET Framework (or .NET 5-6). Starting from this moment, add-ins developed using .Net 5-6 (.Net Framework) will NOT load. Now consider your customer who can't load your add-in or, vice versa, your add-in prevents other add-ins from loading.

And there's an issue: the component designer doesn't work. The bug is now more than 4 years old; see: https://github.com/dotnet/winforms/issues/4333. With that designer not working, you won't see the designer of the add-in module. The Windows Form designer does work.

Given the above, we see no point in supporting .NET 5-6, as this would only add more chaos to our world.

Regards from Poland (CEST),

Andrei Smolin
Add-in Express Team Leader
Posted 22 Oct, 2021 05:29:49 Top
mio


Guest


Hi Andrei,
thank you for the reasoning!
Posted 25 Oct, 2021 11:29:11 Top
Martin Tremblay




Posts: 6
Joined: 2021-10-20
Hi Andrei

i was looking forward for this reply about .NET5-6 support.
Now, since we just bought Add-in express, even if was developing my Outlook add-in on .net framework 4.8, what would be the expected life time of my Outlook add-in? Are COM add-in are about to be unsupported (even not being able to run anymore) in futur versions of Office (outlook in my case)?

I know MS is pushing Addin developpers to use Java now instead of COM Add-in, which i think irritate a lot of peoples, but i really would like to hear your comments on this.

Thanks you
regards
Martin
Posted 10 Nov, 2021 09:31:13 Top