XLL+ Class Library (6.3)

What's New in Version 6.0

Version 6.0

Version 6.0 of XLL+ contained many major changes, including:

Excel 2007 Support

XLL+ 6 supports the new features of Excel 2007, including thread-safe functions, huge spreadsheets and Unicode strings.

Add-ins built with XLL+ 6 will work in Excel 2007 as well as in earlier versions of Excel, and will take advantage of all the features of each.

.NET support

XLL+ 6 now fully supports .NET integration. You can create .NET and Common Language Runtime classes, and call their methods and properties, from within an add-in function. The XLL+ AppWizard now has a setting which sets up all the necessary project settings for you.

Extensibility

With the new extensibility features of XLL+ 6, you can add your own data types, deliver data to the container classes of your choice, and add your own standard code fragments to be added to any or all add-in functions.

Easier development

Many of the most powerful features of an Excel add-in can now be added without any coding. You can add object handles or asynchronous functions with a single click of the mouse.

XLL Add-ins ToolWindow

The new XLL Add-ins ToolWindow lets you edit your add-in functions in the Visual Studio Properties window. You can make changes to multiple functions with one action.

Help for your add-ins

The new Help Generator automatically builds full-featured compiled help files for your add-ins, and lets you add your own HTML content that will be inserted into the compiled help.

Unicode support

XLL+ 6 fully supports Unicode builds, so that you can properly use Unicode character sets in your functions' categories, descriptions and help.

Local language support

All of the run-time messages, including validation error text, can be localized, so that it appears in the language of the user.

Upgrade Wizard

The Upgrade Wizard will automatically regenerate all the code of your existing add-ins that were built with XLL+ 5, to work with XLL+ 6 and use its new features.

New sample applications

We've added new sample applications to demonstrate all the new features.

Upward compatibility

For instructions on how to use the XLL+ Upgrade Wizard to port existing projects to XLL+ 6, please see the topic Upgrading from a previous version of XLL+.

Breaking changes

See Breaking changes for a list of changes that may affect code built with earlier versions of XLL+.

Change history

Refer to the Change history for full list of changes made over all XLL+ versions.